How did your payment s work for your build ?

[woodforthetrees]

I've found my contract - thanks ladies from earlier post.

Not sure though exactly how to do the payment side. By way of background -

This is a 6 month/150k extension.
We've drafted a very detailed spec and schedule of works detaling what we are buying and supplying and exactly what the builder is doing. He has had the architect and building regs plans and has quoted us a global figure

The builder is sub-contracting works and has asked that we pay the sub-contractors direct. That's fine.

But,with the less obvious works (so the basic build itself) what do you do ? Do we agree to pay so much every couple of weeks on receipt of invoices or how does it work? The contract I've seen refers to opening a joint account for monies to go into but that seems a bit fiddly for me.

We're also going to give him some monies up front for buying materials.

Should we also ask him to give us a breakdown of costs so we can keep an eye on what we're paying for what ?

Many thanks !

I think it is a bad idea to give money up front even for materials - if he is established, he should have a trade account at one of the suppliers.

You should agree to stage payments when work is done to your satisfaction; your architect can probably advise what stages would be reasonable.

We're in the process of planning for an extension, and are not quite as far as you (still waiting for buildings drawings) but we have been advised not to pay money up front for materials. Instead it has been suggested to open an account with local building suppliers, so your builder can get everything on the account. There should be a limit on the amount of credit so builder can't buy stuff for other projects, and you can pay the suppliers regularly (say every 2 weeks) so builder can still get materials when needed.
HTH

Ah ok , that sounds like a good idea - I did wonder how they could justify just popping off to a builders merchants and not shoving an extra bag of cement in for something else...