Emergency Notice Desk
RemedialFixed FeeFor Subcontractors, Main Contractors & Clients
I draft or review your Payment Notice or Pay Less Notice the same day, when the clock is nearly out.
The problem
It's Thursday afternoon and the Pay Less Notice deadline is Friday. Get it wrong, or miss it, and the full Notified Sum can become payable whatever the works were actually worth. Or you're the applicant, a defective notice has just landed, and you need to know what it means now, not next week. Either way, the one thing you don't have is time to work it out yourself.
The solution
You send me the payment terms, the document in question and the figures, and I check the real deadline first, under the contract's own counting rules, so you know how much time is left. Then the document is drafted, or the one you've received is forensically reviewed, the same day: the sums, the basis, the dates and the service method, the elements that make a notice valid or worthless. It comes back with plain-English serving instructions, you issue it in your own name, and a follow-up note tells you what to fix so the next cycle never gets this close.
What you receive
A valid notice served in time, protecting the difference between the Notified Sum and the true value of the works, with a much smaller risk of a missed notice becoming a smash and grab adjudication against you. It comes back the same day with a short written note: what was served, whether it holds, and what to fix before the next cycle.
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: the same day, where you instruct by early afternoon.
Illustrative worked example
Every instruction closes with a written report. This is the format, on a worked example: See a worked example (PDF)
How it works
You send me the paperwork
You send everything below in one go and instruct me by early afternoon: same-day turnaround leaves no room for missing documents.
- A
The contract's payment clauses, and the schedule of amendments
EssentialWithout it: The deadline cannot be fixed, and any date given to you may be wrong
Where to find it: The signed contract in the job's commercial folder or attached to the original order email.
Why I need it: The dates come from here and nowhere else
- B
The application or the notice in question, as received
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing to test for validity, and no response can be drafted
Where to find it: It arrived by email or portal within the last few days, so it is usually still near the top of someone's inbox.
Why I need it: The document the whole answer turns on
- C
The dates and the proof of service, both ways
ImportantWithout it: The service date rests on your word alone, and any validity finding built on it is marked unevidenced
Where to find it: Whoever sent or received the application or notice holds the original email with its timestamp: forward that rather than retyping the date.
Why I need it: Validity usually turns on service
Quality: the original email with its timestamp, or a delivery receipt.
- D
The sum and the grounds for any deduction
ImportantWithout it: No notice can be drafted, because a notice must state a sum and its basis, so the fallback response goes instead
Where to find it: Whoever priced the application holds the working file; if the figures only exist on paper, send the scan and say so.
Why I need it: What is at stake, and on what ground
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.
True deadline fixed first.
The real deadline is established from your contract's own counting rules and confirmed to you in writing before any drafting begins.
- A
I check the deadline first
Is there still time, and exactly how much, under the contract's counting rules. If the deadline has already passed, I say so and set out what routes remain.
You take one clarifying call
You are reachable once while I work through the file: one short call usually settles what the paperwork can't.
I draft or forensically review
Sums, basis, dates, service method: the elements that make a notice valid or worthless, same day.
Sum and basis evidenced.
No notice goes forward unless it states the sum due and its basis, with every figure traced to a document, so it survives scrutiny after the deadline.
I tell you what happens next
Plain-English serving instructions with the document, and a follow-up note on what to fix for the next cycle.
Route and addressee verified.
The service method, addressee and deadline are checked twice against the executed contract before the document is passed to you to serve.
You issue the document the same day
It comes back with plain-English serving instructions: you issue it in your own name, by the method they set out, inside the deadline.
I return the notice and the note the same day
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.
My products used
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
The free Pay Less Notice and Payment Notice templates handle the routine cycles; this desk is for the ones with no room left for error. For deadlines held every cycle rather than rescued on the day, see Notice & Deadline Tracking on the Quantity Surveying side.