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Payment notices and adjudication

The payment notice regime turns dates into money, and a pay less notice that never arrives leaves the notified sum payable in full. These guides cover the application, the notices either side of it, and the adjudication route when a main contractor simply does not pay.

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Practical guidesWhich contract to signPick a named contract for the job in front of you, priced: JCT Home Owner at £40, Minor Works 2024 at £100, Intermediate at £178, or your own written terms. Includes the five clauses that decide whether you get paid, and the 14 day cancellation right that can turn a finished job into an invoice you cannot send.Practical guidesPay Less Notice DeadlinesUnder section 111 of the Construction Act, a payer who serves neither a payment notice nor a pay less notice by the days the Act fixes must pay the notified sum in full on the final date for payment, whatever the work was worth. This guide counts both deadlines end to end from a real application date, shows how your own application becomes the notified sum under section 110B(4), and sets out why the payer has to pay first before it can adjudicate the true value.Practical guidesStart an AdjudicationThe statutory right to refer a construction dispute at any time and get a binding decision in 28 days: crystallising the dispute, the notice of adjudication, the nominating bodies and their fees, the referral, the capped low value route, and enforcement in the TCC.Practical guidesSuspending for Non-PaymentSection 112 of the Construction Act lets an unpaid subcontractor stop work on seven days' notice, charge the payer for demobilising and remobilising, and take the lost programme time back. This is the notice, the preconditions in order, and the arithmetic counted from a real date.Practical guidesNo Lien, Four Routes InsteadEngland, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have no construction lien, no mechanics' lien and no holdback trust. This is the four routes that do work, ranked by how fast the money moves: suspension on seven days' notice under section 112, adjudication decided in 28 days under section 108, statutory interest and the fixed sum under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, and the court routes with their real fees. Plus the three near-lien devices that exist in English law, a counted date sequence from 31 May 2026, and a decision table matching debt size, age and payer solvency to a route.Practical guidesWhen a Homeowner Will Not PayA domestic job that goes wrong is the most common non-payment situation a small UK builder faces, and section 106 of the Construction Act specifically excludes them from the statute every article is about. This is what the exclusion takes away, what the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 hand you instead, how to build a stage payment ladder that leaves you one stage exposed, and the four recovery routes with their real fees.

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