Retention Loss Prevention
PreventionOptional monthly check10 working days
Track retention across your jobs, with release dates, supporting documents and requests ready for your team to send.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Get a free report on your claim. About three minutes; no obligation.
The problem
You cannot easily establish how much retention is held across your jobs, and completed projects are being forgotten as teams move on. Missing release dates, certificates or defects-period dates make it harder to know what to chase.
Retention already overdue or refused? See Retention Claim.
The solution
We check each subcontract, build one retention register and flag overdue releases that day. We train the owner and deputy, test the routine on your next release or application, and correct any gaps.
What you get
You receive a job-by-job register of retained sums and release conditions, with a diary giving advance warnings and requests ready to send. We provide a tested written routine your team can maintain.
Includes a Handover Pack: key dates and sources, next steps, likely responses, scope limits and any ready-to-send letters.
Fee: Fixed set-up fee agreed in writing before work starts. Optional monthly checks have a fixed fee agreed first. Pause between jobs or stop at month-end.
How it works
You tell us about your retention
Start with a free call. Agree the scope, fixed fee and timetable in writing, then send the records listed below.
What you get: A written scope, fixed fee and timetable
- A
A list of your live and finished jobs where retention is held
Every job you can name, live or finished, including the ones already written off in your head. A customer list from your accounts package is a fine start.
Where to find it: Your accounts package, the job folders, or an evening's remembering.
Why we need it: The register can only protect retention on jobs it knows about, and the finished jobs nobody is watching are usually where the money is.
How we will use it: It becomes the register's spine: one row per job, each with the retention held and its release dates.
- B
The subcontract or order for each job
A complete PDF or scan with all schedules and amendments; say which jobs have nothing.
Where to find it: The job's commercial folder or the order email.
Why we need it: Release dates come from each subcontract's own wording, and the wording differs from job to job, so no single rule can be applied across the book.
How we will use it: We take the percentage, any limit, each release trigger and when payment follows from it, and put the dates in the diary.
- C
The latest application and certificate for each job
The last application you made and the last Payment Notice or certificate you received, as sent and received.
Where to find it: Your QS's file of applications and certificates, or the job's last paperwork.
Why we need it: The retention actually held is proved from the payment paperwork, not from the ledger's memory of it.
How we will use it: Each job's retention is valued from it, so the figure in every request can be traced.
- D
Any completion, practical completion or making good certificates
As dated PDFs or scans, or the email that confirmed the date where no certificate was issued.
Where to find it: The email trail around handover, or the main contractor's site team.
Why we need it: Release events are usually pinned to these certificates or dates, and their dates are what turn a clause into money due on a known day.
How we will use it: We pin each release to its trigger date and set the diary warning ahead of it.
- E
Who will keep the register
A name, and a deputy for when that person is away.
Where to find it: Your own decision: usually the commercial manager, the QS or whoever makes the applications.
Why we need it: A register nobody owns stops being kept within months, and the release dates fall long after the job's own team has left.
How we will use it: We build the routine around that person and prove it with them on the next live release.
Copies are fine. Send what you have and we will tell you what's missing.
- A
We check what each subcontract says
We read the retention terms in each subcontract and check how you track retention now. If a release is already overdue, we tell you in writing that day.
What you get: A summary of each job's retention terms, and the gaps in how you track it
We build your register and write the requests
One register shows what is held on each job, when each release is due and the paperwork it needs. Each date gets a warning, and each request is written ready to send.
What you get: The register, a diary of release dates and a request ready for each release
We train your team and test it for real
We walk your team through it. They then use it on your next release or application, and we fix anything it shows up.
What you get: A written routine your team knows and has already used
You decide whether we keep checking it
Your team runs the register from here. If you want, we check it each month and tell you what is due, what is late and what has gone unanswered.
We hand over a register your team runs
Get a free report on your claim
Answer the questions below for a free PDF report by email. Allow about three minutes; choose “Not sure” where needed.
Your report explains where you stand, the next steps to take and the records to gather. It also sets out how we could help for a fixed fee, with no obligation.
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Already dealing with it? Retention Claim.