If you are and don't already know or are new to the 'house bashing' game, be aware that on each plot you complete, 5% retention will be held back on your payment. So for every £100, the contractor will hold back £5.
Sounds OK? Well, here's the problem:
On many residential developments, half of this retention is released only upon practical completion of the LAST PLOT OF THE WHOLE DEVELOPMENT and quite often the other half is only released TWO YEARS AFTER PRACTICAL COMPLETION OF THE WHOLE DEVELOPMENT.
Now some developments may run over two years, so this means that it will be at least TWO YEARS before you receive the first half of the retention and a FURTHER TWO YEARS before you receive the remaining retention.
So for every £100 you will wait TWO YEARS to receive the first £2.50 and FOUR YEARS overall to receive the other £2.50.
Imagine you have a housing development where the painting contract is worth, say £100,000.
This means you will wait TWO years to receive £2,500 of this and FOUR YEARS overall to receive the other £2,500.
Effectively, you will feel like you have given the building contractor a 5% discount on your prices.
The Answer?
Well at tendering stage, you could take the decision to add 5% to your initial tender price so that you are covered (I wish every painter in the UK would do this).
However, it will never happen as there will always be some painters who wont do this or are not even aware of retention, so if you are the contractor who has been sensible and added 5% to their prices, you'll never secure the project in the first place.
Who'd be a 'house bashing' painting contractor??????????
Happy Estimating
Mark