A Pay Less Notice has just cut our payment. Can you check it before the final date for payment?
Yes: where a deadline falls this week and you instruct us by early afternoon, the notice check starts that day.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
First we fix the real deadline, using your subcontract's own rules for counting days and serving notices, and confirm it to you in writing. Then we test the notice: who sent it, when, the sum, the basis and how it was served. Each deduction is rated on the evidence behind it: strong, arguable or thin. We never call a notice late or invalid on an assumed date. Where a service date cannot be proved, we give the cautious reading beside the finding. We need the signed subcontract, your application as sent, the notice as it arrived with its date and route, and the records behind the disputed lines. If the check leads on to a valuation, a submission or an adjudication, each stage has its own fixed fee, agreed in writing before it starts.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A cladding subcontractor's application for £88,000 is met on a Tuesday morning by a Pay Less Notice for £57,000. It cites defects and a contra-charge, with no figures. The final date for payment is the Friday.
What happens
- The subcontractor instructs by lunchtime, sending the subcontract, the application as sent and the notice with the email it arrived in.
- The real deadline is worked out from the subcontract's rules on counting and service, and confirmed in writing that afternoon.
- The notice is tested. It came from the named commercial manager, but it arrived after the subcontract's last day for a Pay Less Notice and gives no figure against either reason.
- The findings go back in writing the same day, with the evidenced dates beside each one.
The notice in figures
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Application | £88,000 |
| Pay Less Notice | £57,000 |
| Difference | £31,000 |
The outcome
The subcontractor answers the notice before the final date for payment, setting out the late service and the missing basis on the evidence. It then decides, with the findings in hand, whether to take it further.
To have a notice tested the same day and what you are owed recovered, see our Underpayment Claim service.