For Electricians · England and Wales
First fix, second fix, and then eight weeks chasing the money.
You certified it, you signed it off, the job passed. And the invoice is sitting at ninety days because the contractor has moved on to the next site and your email is somewhere below theirs in the inbox.
What we do about it
We chase every overdue invoice in your name, add the interest the law already says you are owed, and escalate through a regulated firm when somebody takes the mick.
Or one debt as a 60-day trial, with nothing charged unless we get it back.
The one that actually stops you
You already know which invoice this is about.
The one that stops electricians is retention. Half of it at practical completion, the rest at the end of the defects period, and both halves quietly become somebody else's working capital. The other one is the domestic rewire where the customer was delighted, said the cheque was in the post, and stopped answering after the third text.
Where you stand
You are probably covered by the Construction Act
Not legal advice
Most commercial construction work in England and Wales falls under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. It exists because Parliament decided cash flow down the supply chain mattered enough to legislate for, and it gives you rights your contract cannot take away.
- If nobody served a valid pay less notice by the final date for payment, the notified sum is payable. Not arguable, payable.
- Pay-when-paid clauses are outlawed. Being told the client has not paid the main contractor is not a reason you do not get paid.
- You can refer a dispute to adjudication at any time, and a decision normally follows within 28 days.
- Where a notified sum has not been paid, you have a right to suspend performance, on notice.
We are not solicitors and this is not legal advice. Hound is credit control: we chase, we add the statutory interest and compensation the law already gives you, and we assemble the evidence. Anything that needs a letter before action, a claim or an adjudication goes to a regulated firm, on your instruction, and only after you approve it.
The bit almost nobody claims
A £6,000 invoice at 68 days is really £6,201.34.
Statutory interest runs at 11.75% a year on a commercial debt, plus fixed compensation per invoice, under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. On that invoice it is £201.34 on top, and it is yours, not ours. Most trades never claim a penny of it, because claiming it means writing the letter that says so and then meaning it.
How we chase for electricians
Same machine. Not the same letter.
Commercial and domestic are not the same job and we do not treat them as one. A main contractor gets the full ladder in your name with statutory interest added from day three. A householder gets a slower, gentler sequence, every message approved by you before it goes, because they are a consumer and the rules are different.
Start
Hand us the worst one and see what happens.
Nothing is charged unless we get it back. If we have recovered nothing by day 60 we cancel it ourselves and you are charged nothing at all.