Can you recover underpayments on payment cycles that closed months ago?
Yes: we rebuild each past cycle from the documents, find where a valid application went unanswered by any valid notice, and put a limitation date on each.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
Each cycle is rebuilt from your application as sent and every Payment Notice and Pay Less Notice you received. It also uses the payment history: what was certified and paid, and when. Every notice is tested for sender, timing, sum, basis and service, and the figures are traced to documents head by head. The limitation date is the date after which it may be too late to bring a claim for that cycle. We then rank each head and each cycle by strength. What goes forward, and how hard, is your commercial decision. Limitation questions go to your solicitor, with the date on each cycle already worked out. The position goes to your main contractor as a written submission in your name, and we negotiate it. Where that fails and the sum justifies it, we prepare the figures for an adjudication and work alongside whoever conducts it.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontractor finishing an 18-month job believes several certificates were low, but nobody checked the notices at the time. The applications, notices and remittances for all 18 cycles are sent over.
What happens
- Each cycle is rebuilt from the application as sent, the notices received and the payment history.
- Four cycles show an application that no valid notice answered. The others show valid notices.
- Each of the four is given a figure, the documents behind it and a limitation date, and the oldest goes to the solicitor.
- The subcontractor decides to pursue three of the four and leave the weakest.
The outcome
The three cycles go to the main contractor as a written submission, each with its dates and documents. They are not traded away as loose ends at the final account.
To have past cycles rebuilt and what they still owe you recovered, see our Underpayment Claim service.