Has your builder ever bribed you with the preference on the next project if you walk away from outstanding payments on his current job? 

Maybe the money isn’t outstanding, but a bunch of variations are still “for discussion”. 

If you knew what your builder was really thinking when he suggests this arrangement to you, you would focus your quoting efforts elsewhere and force your competitors into his trap. 

Now before I get into the juicy stuff, I need to give you a disclaimer. This blog is about you being asked to walk away from proper, honest to goodness costs that are legitimately owed to you. I trust that you will know in your gut whether this is truly the case, or whether there’s a genuine dispute afoot. 

To be clear, there is a difference between a builder who is trying to settle a barney with you on a good bloke basis, and a builder who is trying to hoodwink you out of your final claim.  

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If you are an Aussie Subcontractor and your builder needs you to start work on site without a written contract squared away, there are a handful of (arguably) innocent reasons this is happening.  

When I say innocent, what I mean is that the builder probably isn’t being predatory when he asked you this favour. More commonly, there are procedural or organisational hurdles internally for the builder that should be cause for you to proceed with caution. 

Here’s what they are: 

1. The design is likely to change, he knows it, and he doesn’t want to lock you into a scope of work before he ‘all in’ commits to giving you the job.

After all, if he signs the contract with you then you’re not going to price the changes keenly are you? He’s worried you’ll think its open slather, and he’s trying to delay giving you the leverage.  

But all is...