Main Contractor Insolvency Response
RemedialFixed FeeFor Subcontractors
When the main contractor above you fails, I run your first 72 hours to a calm commercial checklist: secure what is yours, crystallise what you are owed, serve what the contract requires. Instructed by early afternoon, I mobilise the same day.
The problem
A subcontractor's losses in a main contractor insolvency are mostly decided in the first few days, not by the eventual dividend. Materials on site get incorporated or vanish. Plant walks. Work carries on for a customer who no longer exists. The retention follows the rest of the money into the estate, and the angry email sent on day one becomes the administrator's best document against you. Everyone with money at stake is improvising at speed, and improvising is exactly what the first 72 hours punish.
The solution
I run those hours to a checklist: the commercial actions that preserve money and position while the site still holds your property. The event verified from primary sources and a time-stamped log started; the stop-or-suspend decision taken on the contract's own terms and papered before the next shift; what is yours inventoried and photographed; your account crystallised to the hour; the required notices served correctly; your claim registered in the insolvency process. The legal half, retention of title enforcement, termination timing, the process itself, goes to your solicitor on day one: that referral is part of the service, not a gap.
What you receive
By the end of the response you hold a time-stamped log of what was done and when, a crystallised statement of account built to be evidenced, proof of service for every notice, and your claim registered in the process with its deadlines diarised. On top of the file sit three numbers: what you are owed, what is held that is yours, and what you must not do next. Your solicitor starts from evidence rather than reconstruction, the administrator meets a creditor with a file, and the days that decide most of the money were run to a checklist instead of adrenaline.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Instructed by early afternoon, I mobilise the same day.
How it works
You instruct me today
Send what is below in whatever state it is in and instruct me by early afternoon: I mobilise the same day. Nothing waits for a tidy pack.
- A
What is actually known
EssentialWithout it: The response cannot be matched to the right situation, and guessing wrong at this stage wastes the hours that matter most
Where to find it: Your inbox and your site manager's phone, from the last day or two.
Why I need it: Administration, liquidation and rumour need different first moves
- B
Subcontract
ImportantWithout it: Every notice and the stop-or-suspend decision rest on the statutory position rather than on what your own contract actually says
Where to find it: The commercial folder or the order email.
Why I need it: The insolvency and termination clauses decide the lawful options
- C
Account position
ImportantWithout it: The claim is built from the site measure and whatever paper exists, with applied, certified and paid figures marked unconfirmed
Where to find it: Your accounts package and the job's application folder.
Why I need it: The claim is crystallised from it
- D
Physical position
ImportantWithout it: Anything you cannot evidence is listed as claimed but unevidenced rather than claimed in full, and materials on site are the easiest thing to lose to someone else's inventory
Where to find it: Whoever is on or near site takes them now; I say what to shoot if you are unsure.
Why I need it: The recoverable assets are lost fastest
- E
Tomorrow's labour
EssentialWithout it: The decision on whether to send people to site tomorrow gets made by default rather than deliberately, and that is a cost either way
Where to find it: The site diary and whoever runs your labour.
Why I need it: The most urgent decision has a deadline of dawn
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 verify the event and start the log
Primary sources first: what has actually happened, an appointment, a notice of intention or a rumour, logged time-stamped from the first call onwards.
Event verified at source.
Nothing is drafted or served on a rumour; the insolvency is confirmed from primary public sources or expressly treated as unverified.
You take the stop-or-suspend decision
With me, on the contract's own terms, papered before the next shift: nobody works another day for a customer who no longer exists unless that is a decision.
Decision tied to a clause.
The option taken is tied to the clause that permits it and confirmed in writing before labour is stood down or any notice drafted.
I secure what is yours
Materials, plant and unfixed goods inventoried and photographed, secured where lawful, or formally notified to the administrator where not.
I crystallise the money and serve the notices
Your account fixed to the hour into an evidenced statement, and the notices the contract and the process require drafted and served correctly.
Service details checked twice.
The route, addressee and deadline for every notice are confirmed from the executed subcontract before anything is served.
I register the claim and diary the process
Your claim lodged in the insolvency process and every process deadline diarised, so nothing lapses while the site is being dealt with.
I refer the legal half on day one
Retention of title enforcement, termination timing and the process's legal effect go to your solicitor at once, with a clean file, so they start from evidence rather than reconstruction.
I hand over your position, secured and evidenced
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
Questions I get asked often
This and the Emergency Notice Desk are the two services built to move the same day: the desk rescues a notice deadline measured in hours, and this response takes over the first days after the contractor above you fails. Where the payment chain is slowing rather than failing, Adjudication Support & Claims Preparation recovers what a live counterparty will not pay.