Retention
The client will not release my retention. How do I get it back?
Retention rarely gets stolen. It gets stranded: behind a certificate nobody chased, a snag list nobody closed, or a grievance it was never allowed to secure. Finding which of the three you are dealing with is most of the recovery.
QScope Team·3 August 2026·5 min read
The job finished months ago. The retention line on your account has not moved. Before writing anything angry, work out which of three situations you are actually in, because each has a different letter.
Situation one: nobody ever asked properly
The most common by far. Retention releases on triggers your contract names: usually the first half on the certificate of practical completion, the balance on the certificate of making good at the end of the defects period. Nobody on the client side diaries these for you. The fix is a schedule and one letter: the sums held, the trigger for each release, the date it happened, and a request for payment with the next application. See what retention is and when it comes back.
Situation two: the trigger certificate never got issued
The money is stuck behind paperwork nobody produced: the job is done and lived in, but practical completion was never certified, so the clock this release runs on never started. That is its own problem with its own page, the client moved in but nothing was signed off, and solving it usually unsticks the retention as a side effect. The same goes for the end of the defects period: do the snags, then ask for the making good certificate in writing, because silence there is what strands second halves for years.
Situation three: the retention is funding a different argument
The client is unhappy about something, a crack, a delay, a bill from another trade, and the retention is being kept as leverage. Here the law is on your side and specific: on jobs the Construction Act covers, once a release has fallen due it is part of the sum payable, and paying less than the notified sum requires a pay less notice, in time, stating the amount and the basis (section 111). A grievance is not a notice. Money held past its trigger without one is simply a late payment, and the letter says exactly that, politely, with dates.
Escalation, matched to your client
Business client: the ladder is the usual one, letter with schedule, then adjudication under section 108, which deals with stranded retention quickly and where a client holding money past its trigger with no notice tends to fare badly.
Private homeowner: the Act does not apply (section 106), so there is no notified sum and no adjudication. The triggers still bind because your contract says so; the route when letters fail is a letter before action and the county court, with the consumer protocol’s thirty days built into your plan.
What to do this week
1. Build the retention schedule: held, released, due and unreleased, each with its trigger and date.
2. Send the letter that matches your situation, one page, no adjectives.
3. Fix the machine for next time: both release dates go in the calendar on the day practical completion is certified.
Where the information stops
Whether a particular certificate was validly withheld, and whether a genuine defect justifies holding part of a release, are questions that decide cases. When the stuck sum is serious, an hour with a construction solicitor before adjudicating or issuing is money well spent.