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Replies
Congratulations on winning the work.
In my experience property developers can great to work for or awful to work for never often in between.
My advice would be to do the following:
1) in the first instance to carry out a credit check on the business that you will be contracting to - developers will often set up a seperate ltd co for each property or development - these companies have no assets in there own right so be careful. If the credit. Heck comes out OK then proceed to item 2 if not then you need to be paid up front for each section of work. At this point be strong and insist, there is no point in building beautiful and profitable gardens if you never get paid for it or they knock you on the last payment.
2) Ensure that the specification is clear and that both you and the developer know what is expected, and more importantly what is not included!
3) When you start on site make sure that you make friends with the site agent he can make the job go smoothly for you, or he can make your life hell.
I don't think that there is much you can do about ownership of materials - there is probably somebody on the forum that can help you in that respect, but it is vitally important that you ensure that you get valuations in on time ( the developer should give you valuation dates).
I hope that helps a bit.
Regards
John
Hello John
Thank you for the time you spent replying, its all a help thank you, I just want to protect my self against non payment as much as possible.
Thanks again
Cemlyn
Johns reply is spot-on and can I suggest you take on his points exactly- but from my experience withy house-builders additionally:
Make sure that you clarify the scope of works (as John says)
Check if its a lump sum or remeasurable contract
Check the payment dates and don't let them be even 1 day late.
Check the retentions and discount allowances.
Do not do anything unless you have a written instruction - You will not get paid for anything that is not documented.
Deliver everything to spec.
Communicate communicate communicate
Good luck
Sam
good luck on the work,
i've just started on a millers site doing back gardens they've used the worst soil ever to back fill full of stones and they've decided to quarried limestone across the whole site before starting to keep the site clean then dumped the soil back on top if it now the site doesent drain