What to put in a building quote so there is no argument in six months

A quote is not marketing with a number on it. Once accepted, it is usually the contract, or the biggest part of one, and on a domestic job it may be the whole legal system: with a residential occupier the Construction Act does not apply (section 106), so your rights are precisely what this document says and not one word more. Here is what it needs. This is drafting practice, not statute, and where a proper form does it better, use the form and let the quote become its schedule.

The nine things

1. Scope in the positive: what you are building, by reference to named drawings with revision numbers and a specification, so “the works” has an address. The work nobody priced is born in vague scope.

2. Exclusions in the negative, explicitly: the things a client will assume are included and are not. If it is not written here, expect to do it for free or fight about it.

3. The money structure: the price, what it is (fixed, or rates), and stage payments with amounts and trigger events. On longer Act jobs stages are also a right (section 109); on domestic jobs they exist only if you write them, and they are your main protection.

4. The four payment periods: when payment falls due, notice dates, final date. The four numbers page explains them; the quote is where they get decided instead of discovered.

5. A variations procedure a human will follow: changes to be confirmed in writing (a text or email counts, say so), priced before or promptly after, added to the next invoice. Two sentences, and they carry the whole he-told-me-on-site problem.

6. Time, honestly: a start, a realistic duration, and what happens when the client causes delay, the date moves. Without that sentence you are relying on a doctrine you never want to need.

7. A modest interest clause. Here is the trap this series flagged as rule-worthy: on a consumer contract your terms face the fairness test under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. A reasonable rate survives; a punitive one gets struck out entirely, leaving you with nothing at the moment you need it. Write the modest number. The business-client backdrop is on the interest page.

8. Deposit and materials terms, if money moves early: what it covers and how it is earned off, the deposit page has the wording logic.

9. What happens at the end: completion, a defects period if you offer one, and how the final balance is agreed. One paragraph that prevents the discount conversation arriving unstructured.

The two self-inflicted wounds

The borrowed legalese. Clauses copied from a commercial contract into a homeowner quote, sweeping exclusions, brutal cancellation terms, read as strong and die at the fairness test, taking your credibility with them. Plain and modest survives; fierce and copied does not.

The everything-is-extra structure. A low headline price with a long tail of chargeable assumptions wins the job and poisons it: every invoice becomes an argument, and by month four the client believes nothing you write. The quote’s job is fewer arguments, not a lower Tuesday price.

What to do this week

1. Take your standard quote and score it against the nine. Most builders’ templates have 1, 3 and a logo.

2. Add what is missing in your own words, short sentences, no borrowed thunder.

3. For jobs above your comfort line, pair the quote with a proper short form and let the quote define scope and price while the form carries the machinery.

Where the information stops

This page is a checklist, not a drafted document, and standard terms you will use on every consumer job for years are one of the few places where paying a solicitor once, to draft them properly, is straightforwardly good value. Get them written, then reuse them forever.