Deposit & Advance Payment Review
Risk mitigationFixed FeeFor Self Builders5 working days
Every payment your build asks you to make before you have the thing you are paying for, added up in one place before the money moves: the most at risk at any one moment, what would actually protect each pound if a supplier failed, checks on the companies holding the largest amounts, and the changes to ask for before you sign. A self builder's largest single risk is not the builder's price; it is paying for things that do not exist yet.
The problem
A timber frame company takes half its money on order. A window supplier takes a deposit on a twelve-week lead time. A kitchen takes a deposit a year before it is fitted, and the builder asks for money up front to buy materials. None of those payments buy anything you own: they buy a promise, and the promise is only as good as the company behind it. Construction has more insolvencies than any other sector, and if a company fails while holding your deposit you are almost always an unsecured creditor, someone owed money with no claim on any particular asset, which in practice means the money is gone. The exposure is also invisible, because it builds one order at a time: no household ever decides to have tens of thousands of pounds sitting with four companies at once. They just place four orders.
The solution
I build the exposure register: one row for every advance payment, its amount, its date, who holds it and what you receive at that moment, plotted over time so the peak exposure, the most money standing with other people at any single moment, becomes one number with a date. For each row I establish what actually stands behind the money: whether ownership of the goods passes when you pay or only when they arrive, whether a retention of title clause, one that keeps ownership with the seller until they are paid, could actually work in practice, and any bond, protection scheme or payment-method protection, each explained as a mechanism rather than recommended. The companies holding the most are checked against the public record and reported as filed facts with dates and sources, never as predictions about anyone. Then the part that changes the outcome: the specific asks to put to each supplier before you sign, and your own standing payment rules, short enough to apply to the next order without ringing anyone. Whether a clause is enforceable is a solicitor's question, and whether to buy any insurance is a financial decision the review never makes for you. Fee fixed and quoted in writing.
What you receive
You see the peak exposure as one number with a date, know what would actually protect each pound, and go back to your suppliers with specific changes to ask for while they still want the order. The register keeps working for the rest of the build, showing at any moment how much of your money is standing with other people, and the standing rules decide the orders you place two years from now. Nothing here predicts any company's future or recommends any financial product; the facts are laid out and the decisions stay yours.
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: five working days.
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 send everything that asks for money in advance
The list below, forwarded as it stands, including the payments that seem too small to matter. If anything falls due before the report could land, say so first, because that changes the order of the work.
- A
Every document asking for money in advance
EssentialWithout it: The register misses payments and understates what you are actually exposed to.
Where to find it: Your inbox and your bank statements; forward it all as it stands.
Why I need it: The register is only useful if it is complete
- B
The payment schedule and its terms
EssentialWithout it: There is no way to tell whether a payment buys progress or just buys time, so the review cannot say what each payment is actually protecting.
Where to find it: The builder or supplier sent it; forward the whole document.
Why I need it: Decides whether payments follow value or the calendar
- C
What is already paid
EssentialWithout it: Money already gone is left out of the exposure figure entirely, understating what is actually at risk today.
Where to find it: Your inbox and your bank statements; forward it all as it stands.
Why I need it: Exposure that exists today and cannot be restructured, only recorded
- D
What is still to be ordered
ImportantWithout it: The review can only look backward at what is already committed, and the orders still to come, where restructuring is still possible, go unexamined.
Where to find it: Your own plans; a list of things, not companies, is enough.
Why I need it: Where the review can actually change the outcome
- E
Rough dates
ImportantWithout it: The exposure figure becomes a total rather than a peak, and the number that actually matters, how much is out at any one moment, never gets calculated.
Where to find it: Your own plans; a list of things, not companies, is enough.
Why I need it: Turns a list into a peak exposure over time, which is the number that matters
- F
The funding shape
ImportantWithout it: A lender paying in arrears can force an advance payment the review never accounts for, so a restructuring ask the funding will not actually allow gets made.
Where to find it: Your mortgage offer or self-build lender's drawdown schedule; if you are not using a stage-release lender, say so and that settles it.
Why I need it: A lender paying in arrears forces advance payments the household did not choose
- G
How the build is run, and the works type
EssentialWithout it: The exposure is read against the wrong shape of build, and the works type that decides the VAT and warranty position is missing
Where to find it: You know this already and it takes two minutes: who holds the contracts, one builder for the whole job or trades engaged separately or a kit company plus trades; who designed it; and whether anyone is administering the contract or certifying payments. Say if it has changed since you started
Why I need it: The route decides how many accounts run in parallel, what quotes and valuations are levelled onto, and which contract a change belongs in
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 exposure register
One row per payment: what it is, to whom, how much, when due, what you hold at that moment, and when the exposure ends. Plotted over time, so the total asked for across the build and the peak at one moment stop being the same number; the peak, read off the dates, is the answer.
Nothing paid unchecked
Any payment due before the report is flagged at once, and you are told in writing not to pay until the check on that supplier and what protects it lands.
I establish what stands behind each payment
The terms read for what the payment is called and where ownership sits, retention of title tested against whether it could work in practice, and any bond, scheme or payment-method protection recorded as a matter of fact. Every row is marked protected, partly protected or unprotected.
I check the companies holding the most
The public record on the largest exposures: filed accounts and their dates, net assets, registered charges, and whether the trading name matches the legal entity on the quotation. What is there is reported with its source and the date checked, and nothing more; no prediction is ever made about a named company.
I write the asks and your standing payment rules
For each unprotected payment, the change to ask for in words you can send: a smaller deposit, payment on delivery, a staged release, goods marked as yours, stored separately and insured. And a short set of standing rules you can apply to the next order without help, because you will be placing orders long after the report is read.
Protection known first
Every deposit is marked protected, partly protected or unprotected, citing the document that says so, before any change is asked of a supplier.
You keep the register and apply the rules
The register goes out as a working spreadsheet, updated at each new order, with a stated trigger for looking again whenever the peak would pass the threshold you set. The rules are yours; the review's job is to make them ones you will actually follow.
I hand over the register, the asks and your payment rules
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.
The deposit and advance-payment method uses supported records; it does not review or approve your work and is not legal or matter-specific advice, a retainer, or a QS appointment.
