Written for the people who value the work

A defect is work that does not match the contract, and half the items on an angry snag list fail that test: they match the contract and not the client’s imagination. How to sort a defects schedule into its four real categories, and answer it without a war.

Since the domestic reverse charge, most VAT-registered construction supplies inside CIS swap who accounts for the tax: the customer does, not the supplier. Why the invoice looks wrong and is right, the end user exception, and the cash flow effect nobody warns you about.

Court fees are published and start at 35 pounds; on bigger claims the issue fee is 5% of the sum. Adjudication has no fee table: each side carries its own costs. Which route eats less of the debt, with sources and read dates.

Sometimes, but never as a favour and never undocumented. What a subcontractor’s deposit request usually means, the three safer ways to fund his materials, and the recovery wording that stops your advance becoming an unsecured loan.

The dividing line is simpler than the clause lists make it look: delay from the client’s side of the fence gives time, delay from yours does not, and neutral events give whatever the contract chose to give. Where weather really sits.

The handshake is an inch away and the ask arrives: knock a bit off and we are done. It works because you have already spent the evenings and can smell the job. The three answers that keep your margin, and the one response that trains clients to repeat it.

In England and Wales, no. There is no construction lien, and materials built in belong to the property whether or not you have been paid. What you actually have instead, and the mistake that turns their debt into your problem.

Instruction first, then the valuation ladder your contract sets: contract rates, adjusted rates, a fair price or dayworks. Where each rung applies, and why the smallest variations are the ones that never get paid.

The honest answer is that either beats a two-page quote, and the choice mostly follows who the client is: RIBA’s domestic forms are written for homeowners, JCT Minor Works for jobs run by a professional. And Minor Works is not a small version of the big forms.