QScope

Written for the people who value the work

Payment, valuation, variations, retention and the final account. 174 pieces, no sign-up, and no piece that ends in a sales pitch.

Latest

Site manager in a hi-vis vest shaking hands with a man in a suit holding a hard hat
Subcontractors23/07/2026
My subcontractor walked off the job and still wants paying. Where do I stand?

Before anything else, check one thing: were his applications paid? A subcontractor suspending over non-payment under section 112 is exercising a right, not abandoning. Where the walk-off is real, how to value what he left and deduct properly.

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Calculator, bolts and a blue hard hat on a set of drawings
Construction Act22/07/2026
Enforcing an adjudicator's decision when the loser will not pay

An adjudicator's decision binds temporarily and is enforced by summary judgment in the TCC. Pay now, argue later. The defences are narrow, and insolvency can be one of them.

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Handshake over a laptop and drawings, colleague in hi-vis behind
Construction Act21/07/2026
Who is the contract administrator on your job, and why it matters

Somebody on the client side is supposed to value your work, certify it and run the clock. Knowing who, by name and role, decides where your application goes, whose silence starts the default machinery, and whose email actually binds the client.

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Man drawing on a large sheet at a desk by a window
Construction Act20/07/2026
The NEC payment timetable: assessment date, due date and Y(UK)2

Under NEC the assessment date drives the timetable. With Option Y(UK)2 the payment becomes due seven days after it and the final date fourteen days after that. The gap is where a JCT habit costs a week.

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Two people in hi-vis vests in front of a new brick apartment building
Retention18/07/2026
Retention under NEC: it only exists if Option X16 is in the contract

NEC has no retention unless secondary Option X16 is included. Where it is, there is a retention free amount, a percentage, and a two-stage release at Completion and the Defects Certificate.

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Client shaking hands with a tradesman holding a tool belt
Subcontractors16/07/2026
The client paid a deposit. How do I account for it?

A deposit is payment for work you have not done yet, which makes it a debt until you earn it. The recovery schedule that stops it becoming a hole at the end of the job, the VAT point most builders miss, and the fairness trap on domestic work.

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Worker in a hi-vis vest fitting a new window into a blockwork wall
Variations15/07/2026
Small extras keep eating the job. How do I stop doing them for free?

No single extra under two hundred pounds feels worth the awkward conversation, and thirty of them are a month’s wages. The three-sentence habit that captures small changes without souring the job, and the quote clause that makes the habit expected.

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Blank notepad, dividers, phone, radio and yellow hard hat on a wooden desk
Reports14/07/2026
The golden thread is a cost line, not a slogan

Keeping and handing over the golden thread of information is work. Work has a cost. Price it and put it in the estimate, rather than filing it under compliance and hoping.

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Two men in suits and hard hats outside a finished stone-clad building
Reports13/07/2026
What a funder wants that a client does not

The same figures read for a different question. A client asks what it will cost; a funder asks whether the money already lent is still secured.

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