There's a new back-charge on every payment
Cleaning, skips, attendance, a broken door: every Pay Less Notice carries something new, and none of it seems worth a fight.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
What's happening?
Every payment brings a few small deductions, and each one is too small to argue about, so nobody argues. The charges are not the real problem; the missing routine is. Nobody checks each notice against your application the day it arrives. Nobody asks for the basis of a charge while the facts are fresh. And nothing on site records who left an area in what state.
Left alone, the lines add up. By the end of the job they can be worth more than a good variation. Your main contractor's surveyor reads your silence as agreement. By the final account, nobody on your side can say why the cleaning was charged or whether the door was ever yours.
The solution
Read every Payment Notice and Pay Less Notice the day it arrives, and log each deduction. Within the week, challenge each one in writing. Ask for its basis, the notice behind it, its evidence and its build-up. On site, get finished areas signed off and photographed before the next trade moves in.
Our Contra-Charge Prevention service sets up that routine and those records with your team, and we prove it on your next payment cycle. The deductions already taken can be answered line by line through Contra-Charge Claim.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A drylining subcontractor on a £900,000 package finds 23 deductions across 11 Pay Less Notices, totalling £19,400. Nobody has challenged any of them, and the site team cannot say where most came from.
What happens
- The subcontractor builds a deductions register from the 11 notices: date, amount, description and the notice each came in.
- It sends a written challenge on all 23, asking for the basis, notice, evidence and build-up of each.
- The main contractor can show no basis for nine charges and withdraws them.
- It reduces six more once their build-ups show other trades' areas were included.
- The subcontractor accepts the remaining eight, which the evidence supports.
- From the next cycle the routine runs. The team challenges each new deduction within the week and hands over finished areas on a signed sheet with photographs.
The 23 deductions
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Taken over 11 months | £19,400 |
| Withdrawn, nine charges | £8,100 |
| Reduction on six charges | £2,700 |
| Accepted, 14 charges as reduced | £8,600 |
The outcome
The main contractor credits back £10,800. Over the last 4 months of the job it makes only two new deductions, and the subcontractor accepts both on their evidence.