In UK construction, being owed money and being entitled to be paid are two different things — and the difference is usually a notice served (or missed) by a deadline. Here is the whole system in one page.
Payment notice: a notice the payer (or the payee, if the payer stays silent) gives within 5 days of the payment due date, saying how much it considers due and how that sum was worked out.
Pay less notice: the payer's notice that it intends to pay less than the notified sum, with its reasons — and it has to arrive before the deadline in the contract (by default 7 days before the final date for payment).
If no valid pay less notice arrives in time, the notified sum has to be paid by the final date — argue about the value later. Put your own dates in the calculator to see every deadline.
It is the notice, required by the Construction Act, that states the sum the payer considers due at the payment due date and the basis on which it is calculated. It must be given within 5 days of the due date.
A payment notice says how much is due. A pay less notice says the payer intends to pay less than the notified sum, and why. Without a valid pay less notice in time, the notified sum must be paid.
The Construction Act exists because cash flow is the lifeblood of construction — so Parliament decided arguments about how much work is worth must not stop money moving. The mechanism: at each payment cycle a sum gets "notified", and unless the payer formally challenges it in time, that sum must be paid — argue later. Every deadline below exists to serve that idea, and missing one has consequences deliberately designed to hurt.
You apply for payment (or the contract fixes a valuation date), and the contract sets a due date. Under the statutory Scheme, sums become due 7 days after the end of the relevant period or the making of a claim, whichever is later. Your application should be detailed enough to stand as the notified sum — because if the payer stays silent, it may become exactly that.
The payer must serve a payment notice stating the sum it considers due and the basis of calculation, within 5 days of the due date. If it doesn't, and you made a proper application, your application generally becomes the notified sum by default. Silence is expensive — for them.
If the payer wants to pay less than the notified sum (set-offs, defects, contra-charges), it must serve a pay less notice before the contractual deadline — under the Scheme, no later than 7 days before the final date for payment — again stating the sum and the basis. Vague deductions announced in a phone call don't count. No valid pay less notice, no lawful reduction.
The date money must actually land — under the Scheme, 17 days from the due date (contracts often set their own). After this date, an unpaid notified sum carries statutory interest, and after the required warning notice you gain the right to suspend work — with your reasonable costs of demobilising recoverable.
If the payer served neither a valid payment notice nor a valid pay less notice in time, the notified sum is payable in full — and an adjudicator can order it paid without ever valuing the work. That is a smash-and-grab adjudication: brutal, fast, and entirely legal. It cuts both ways: track your own notice obligations to your subcontractors just as carefully.
Timings shown are the statutory Scheme defaults — your contract can (and usually does) set its own dates, provided they meet the Act's minimums. Always read the payment clause first; the Scheme fills the gaps where the clause falls short.
Enter your due date and contract terms and get every deadline on a calendar — payment notice, pay less notice, final date — with reminders before each one so a £40k application never dies to a missed Tuesday.
Free payment notice calculator →They make every application notice-quality: itemised, dated, delivered the way the contract requires, so that silence converts it into the notified sum. They diarise the payer's deadlines, not just their own — because the payer's missed deadline is their leverage. They keep daily site records so that when the argument does move to valuation, the evidence is already sitting there. And they never let a "we'll sort it at the final account" drift past a limitation period — if your final account is stuck, start with our free final account health check.
Since the 2011 amendments, yes — the Act covers construction contracts whether written or oral, with limited exceptions (notably residential occupiers). If your terms are silent on payment, the Scheme's timetable applies automatically.
Yes — after the final date has passed with no valid pay less notice, and after giving at least 7 days' written notice of intention to suspend. Follow the procedure exactly; suspending without it can put you in breach instead.
It is designed to be fast (28 days) and proportionate; a straightforward smash-and-grab is among the cheapest formal remedies in construction. Costs vary — take advice early, especially on whether your notices position is as clean as you think.
Retention follows the same notice machinery at release dates — and it is one of the most commonly "forgotten" sums in the industry. Diarise both release dates the day you sign the contract.
Write to us with the dates — application, due date, what notices you received — and we'll point you the right way, honestly and free.
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