Contracts and Payment Schedules: Protecting Your Money
PremiumWhy a handshake deal can cost you thousands, what a proper building contract covers, and how to structure stage payments so you never pay ahead of completed work. UK-specific guidance for homeowner-managed extensions.
Do this first:
A builder who walks off your site with £30,000 of your money and no written contract is almost impossible to recover from. It happens more often than the industry likes to admit. The builder quotes verbally, the homeowner pays a large deposit by bank transfer, work starts promisingly, then slows, then stops. The builder moves to another job. Weeks pass. Calls go unanswered. And the homeowner discovers that without a written contract specifying scope, payment terms, and completion dates, their legal position is weak and their money is gone.
This guide exists to prevent that. A written contract and a properly structured payment schedule are the two most important financial protections you have on any building project. Get them right and you're protected when things go wrong. Skip them and you're relying entirely on trust, which is a strategy that works right up until it doesn't.
This guide assumes you've already found and vetted your builder using our finding a builder guide, and you've compared quotes using getting quotes and comparing. You should also have your full budget mapped out from budgeting and contingency. Don't sign a contract until all three of those steps are done.
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