What is the notified sum?
It is the amount in the notice that counts for the cycle: your main contractor's Payment Notice, or your application or default notice if none was given.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
A valid Payment Notice sent in time fixes it. If none is sent and your subcontract makes your application the default notice, your application fixes it. Under section 111 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, your main contractor must pay the notified sum by the final date for payment. The exception is a valid Pay Less Notice, sent in time, stating a lower sum. Then the lower sum is what must be paid. The notified sum is not a valuation of the work. It comes from the notices. That is why a main contractor that misses both notices can owe your full application, whatever the work was worth. What the work is really worth is a separate question, settled separately.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
You apply for £96,000 on the date your subcontract sets. It allows 5 days for a Payment Notice and sets a final date for payment.
What happens
- Your application for £96,000 goes in on the date the subcontract sets.
- No Payment Notice arrives within the 5 days.
- No Pay Less Notice arrives either.
The outcome
The notified sum is £96,000, payable in full by the final date for payment. Whether £96,000 was the right value of the work is a separate dispute. It does not change what fell due that month.
Underpayment Claim reads your past cycles for sums that fell due and were never paid.