Can my main contractor re-issue its Payment Notice?
Possibly, but it cannot backdate it, so keep every version and check whether the deadline was still open when the new one arrived.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
A notice already sent cannot be quietly overwritten. Check your subcontract for any right to correct a notice, the deadline the notice had to meet and what the change does to your payment. Paying you an extra amount nobody disputes is not the same as changing the notice itself. If the window has closed, a later Pay Less Notice may still be open to your main contractor. Some subcontracts allow no correction at all. Get advice quickly on the actual documents.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
Your subcontract gives your main contractor 5 days after the due date to send its Payment Notice. It sent one for £90,000. On day 4 it sends a replacement, saying the first one counted a £10,000 item twice.
What happens
- You keep the first notice, its calculation and the record of when it arrived.
- You check that the window was still open on day 4.
- You file the replacement with the date it actually arrived.
- Had it arrived on day 6, after the window closed, you would record the payment and notice questions as open, not accept either figure as settled.
The outcome
Both notices sit on the file with their real dates. Nothing is backdated, and a late replacement is treated as an open question, not a settled figure.
To have a replaced or corrected notice tested against the window it had to meet, see our Underpayment Claim service.