The client says it is defective and will not pay. Is it actually defective?

Start with the definition, because every item on the list gets held against it: a defect is work that does not conform to the contract, the drawings, the specification, the workmanship standards it references, or, where the contract is silent, work falling short of reasonable skill and care. Not work the client dislikes. Not work that differs from a magazine. The measuring stick is the documents, which is one more reason the documents deserve writing properly.

Sort the list into its four real categories

1. Genuine defects. The failed sealant, the door hung out of square, the crack beyond shrinkage. These are yours: agree them, fix them fast, and say so in writing. Conceding the real items is what buys your credibility on the rest, and your right to return and fix them yourself, rather than fund someone else’s day rate, is worth protecting.

2. Snags and shrinkage. Minor settling-in items on a new build or extension: hairline cracks, doors that need easing after the heating goes on. Normal, expected, and handled by the defects period machinery, they justify the ordinary process, not a withheld payment, and the snag-or-defect line has its own page.

3. Taste and expectation items. “The grout is darker than I imagined”, “I thought it would feel bigger”. Where the work matches the spec, these are not defects at all, and the reply names the document: built as drawing 104 revision C, as specified. If the client wants it different anyway, that is a variation with a price, not a remedy.

4. Design outcomes. The spec the client (or their designer) chose performing exactly as that product performs. You built what was designed; disappointment with the design belongs upstream of you, and whose choice it was is answerable from the documents.

The money is a separate fight, and often a shorter one

Whatever the list’s merits, withholding payment has its own rules, and they run on the calendar, not on the workmanship. On jobs the Construction Act covers, paying less than the notified sum needs a pay less notice, in time, with the sum and its basis, and an angry list is not one; the mechanics, and what an invalid deduction means, are on the deductions page. Run both tracks at once: the sorted reply on the merits, and the notice check on the money, because winning the money this cycle does not need the merits settled.

On a job for someone living in the house

The definition does not move: a defect is still non-conformance with the contract, and your sorted reply works identically. What changes is the machinery, no notified sum regime with a residential occupier (section 106), so the withheld payment is tested against the contract and consumer law: work must be done with reasonable care and skill, the client’s remedies for genuine defects are real, and deductions still have to reflect a real, costed loss. The escalation, if sorting and fixing do not settle it, is a letter before action and the county court, with your item-by-item reply as the first exhibit.

What to do this week

1. Sort the list into the four categories, against the documents, before replying to anything.

2. Send the item-by-item reply with dates for the genuine items, and start fixing them on schedule.

3. Run the notice check on the withheld money the same day, because that clock does not pause for the workmanship debate.

Where the information stops

Category boundaries are where experts earn fees: whether a crack is shrinkage or structure, whether workmanship met the standard, are opinion questions that may need an independent eye, and on a big withheld sum, a surveyor’s or engineer’s report on the genuinely contested items is often the cheapest way to shrink the argument to its real size.