Written for the people who value the work

On a higher-risk building the Building Safety Act gateways are hard stops. A stop on the programme is a stop on the cash, and the QS has to price that in.

A payment notice has to say the sum considered due and how it is worked out, and it has to read as the notice it claims to be. Miss either and it is nothing.

Title to site materials passes to the employer once their value is certified and paid. But a contractor can pass only the title it holds, and a supplier's retention of title clause can defeat the employer even after payment.

On many standard forms the final certificate is not just the last payment: after a short window passes, it becomes conclusive evidence on the account, in both directions. The window is weeks, it is in your particulars, and it does not care whether you noticed it.

Insolvency partway through a package raises questions about payment, materials, retention and completing the work. The answers depend on what was in place before.

Chasing each payment is fighting the same battle twelve times. The fix happens once, at the start: a written schedule of every due date, notice date and final date for the whole job, so lateness stops being an opinion and starts being a number of days.

For construction the tax point is usually the earlier of invoice or payment. Retention is different: its tax point waits until the retention is received or invoiced.

Time and money are separate entitlements with separate tests. Why an extension of time does not carry money with it, what has to be ascertained, and where these claims usually fail.

Set-off is legitimate and routinely done badly. Without a valid pay less notice and a quantified basis, the deduction fails and the full sum falls due.