Retention Recovery Sweep
RemedialFixed FeeFor Subcontractors10 working days per batch
I sweep your historic contracts for every retention still owed, value each sum from the payment paperwork and chase its release with letters ready to send in your name. Across an old book the total is routinely tens of thousands of pounds, and every passing year moves more of it towards being lost for good.
The problem
Retention works because it is forgotten: held in small sums, job by job, due for release long after everyone has moved on to the next site. Across a subcontractor's historic book the forgotten total is routinely tens of thousands of pounds, sitting in other businesses' bank accounts because chasing any single sum never felt worth the afternoon. And time is the real enemy: limitation periods run quietly, and a retention that was merely overdue five years ago can be approaching the date it becomes nothing at all.
The solution
I sweep the whole book at once. Every historic contract goes into a register, one row per job, and each release position is established from the contract's words: what triggers each half, and when it fell due. Each sum is valued from the payment paperwork, not the ledger's memory of it, then chased with release requests in your name citing the clause, the trigger and the date each moiety fell due. The tail is triaged honestly: worth fighting, worth waiting for, needing a legal opinion, or written off with the number showing why. Anything near limitation is flagged in writing the day it is identified.
What you receive
A register of every retention owed across the book: valued from the paperwork, dated from the contracts, graded for evidence. Letters ready to send in your own name, near-limitation sums flagged and prioritised, and the hopeless tail written off with its reasoning shown rather than left to nag. A diary of every future release date. And twenty-one days after the letters go, an updated register showing what moved, what is promised and what earns the next escalation. What was a vague sense of money left behind becomes a worked document with dates on it.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: ten working days per batch.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You tell me about the book
One call: roughly how many jobs, how far back, and what you already suspect is stuck. The first conversation is free.
You send the records you hold
Everything below, however patchy, in one go. Gaps are graded, not fatal: an incomplete book is normal, and it is what the sweep is for.
- A
The batch list
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to sweep: the half-remembered jobs, usually where the money is, stay unrecovered
Where to find it: Your accounts package, old job folders, or an evening's remembering.
Why I need it: Defines the sweep; the half-remembered jobs are usually the money
- B
Contracts or orders
ImportantWithout it: The release percentage and mechanics have to be reconstructed from the payment paper, or, failing that, the demand falls back to the statutory default position
Where to find it: Old commercial folders, the order emails, the filing box nobody opens.
Why I need it: The release mechanics live in them
- C
Last account positions
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to value the retention against, and the sweep cannot say what is actually held
Where to find it: Your accounts package or the job's last paperwork.
Why I need it: What was actually held, against what should have been
- D
Completion and defects evidence per contract: the practical completion certificate or notice, the making good certificate, and the defects period stated
ImportantWithout it: The moiety cannot be dated, so it carries a stated open question instead of a due date, is not chased for a sum and is not counted for limitation
Where to find it: The job's completion paperwork, the main contractor's certificates, the handover file, or the payer if you can ask for a copy.
Why I need it: The review turns each release trigger into a date from these, and every due date, overdue sum, interest day count and limitation horizon is computed from that date
- E
Prior correspondence
ImportantWithout it: The letters go out as first requests, treating every payer as not yet asked, even where one already has been
Where to find it: Sent items are usually more complete than inboxes.
Why I need it: A promise in writing changes the chaser; a prior refusal changes the triage
- F
Your ledger view of what they believe is outstanding, with figures
OptionalWithout it: There is no claimed figure to set the traced total against, so the sweep can say what the paper proves but not what your own belief was, and the gap between the two is never quantified
Where to find it: The accounts package's retention or debtors report, the aged debt listing, or your own list.
Why I need it: It is the claimed figure recorded, and the figure the independently traced total is set against; the difference between claimed and traced is a finding you are told
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I build the register
One row per contract with an honest evidence grade, so from day one the book is a document rather than a feeling.
I establish and value each release position
Mechanics and dates from each contract's own words, including conditional-release drafting that deserves a challenge, then each sum valued from the payment paper: held, due, overdue, at risk. Anything near limitation is flagged in writing the day it is identified.
Deadlines Flagged Same Day
Every release date is computed from each contract's own words, and any sum nearing its recovery deadline is flagged to you in writing the day it is found.
I draft the letters
Release requests in your name citing the clause, the trigger, the due date and the sum, nearest horizons first, with fourteen-day chasers behind them.
Letters Match the Register
Every sum in every letter matches its register row and traces to the deduction paperwork and release clause, so no request can be dismissed as unsupported.
I triage the tail
The stubborn residue is called honestly: worth fighting, worth waiting for, needing a legal opinion, which I say plainly and refer, or written off with the number showing why.
Sensitive Cases Held Back
Any contract touched by settlement wording, insolvency or a live relationship is held for your decision before a letter goes, so no letter costs you a client.
I hand over the register and the diary
The valued register, every letter, and a diary of every future release date, so nothing new joins the forgotten pile. Twenty-one days on, I update the register with what moved.
I hand back the book, valued, chased and diarised
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
Tips that raise your odds of success
Retention Tracking on the Quantity Surveying side stops new jobs joining the forgotten pile, and Retention Dispute fights a single sum that is stuck and defended. This sweep is for the historic book: everything owed, found, valued and chased at once, with any job that hardens into a real fight arriving at the dispute with its evidence already assembled.