Do you pay your tradesmen upfront?

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Do you pay your tradesmen upfront? We found an electrician we like but he’s asking for 50% upfront (£3500) which I think is quite a lot.

the other trades we’ve employed so far (plumber, Gad engineer, repointing) have been pay on completion. I was a bit surprised when he asked for 50% upfront. I worry that it’s a sign the business has cash flow problems.

My own job (not building) I used to do the 1/3 upfront (materials) 1/3 during (wages for anyone I employed) and 1/3 when the job was done and the customer happy (the rest of my costs and my own wages). But we have found that round here nobody doing work for us on the house has asked for anything until they have finished, even when we offered. In fact, we've had to nag a bit to get some of them to send us their invoices, even after they have finished! I've been trying to get an invoice from one of them for weeks- I do like to pay on the nail where I can get the bills out of people.

No. Never ever do l do that. I would buy my materials personally and get them delivered to my address but that’s it.

This is what I did for recent garage conversion