How long do I have to recover old retention?
Each release has its own time limit, which runs from the date it fell due and is longer if your subcontract was signed as a deed.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
Each release is a separate debt. Its clock starts on the date it fell due under your subcontract, not the day the job finished or the day you noticed. So the first and second releases on the same job run on different clocks. A subcontract signed as a deed allows longer than one signed in the ordinary way, so check how each one was signed. On a book of old jobs, work out when every release fell due and put them in date order. Send the ones closest to the end to your solicitor first. A letter asking for payment does not, on its own, stop the clock. Your solicitor confirms the exact date for each job and the step that will protect it. To do that, they will need a clear record of what is held and when each release fell due.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A finished job has two releases of £6,000 under a subcontract signed in the ordinary way. The first fell due on practical completion 5 and a half years ago. The second fell due a year later, at the end of the defects period.
What happens
- The subcontractor works out the due date of each release from the subcontract and the certificates.
- The first release, the older of the two, goes to the solicitor that week with the record of what is held and when it fell due.
- The second is requested in writing with the certificate attached.
- The solicitor confirms the date that applies to each release.
The outcome
The two £6,000 releases are dealt with on their own clocks, oldest first, and neither date is assumed.
Our Retention Claim works out every release date across your old jobs and flags the ones near their deadline the day they are found.