Are you making valid payment claims?
For your tax invoice to be valid as a payment claim, it must:
- Indicate the amount of the progress payment you are claiming,
- Identify and sufficiently describe the construction work (or related goods/services) to which the payment relates,
- Be served to the other party to the contract,
- (for contracts entered into before 21 October 2019) Be issued after a “Reference Date,” and
- Have an accompanying Supporting Statement if the claim is to be served by a Head Contract under a Main Contract.
What’s a Supporting Statement, though?
If you’re a head contractor serving a payment claim to a principal, you must include a Supporting Statement. This is a statement that declares that all subcontractors and suppliers you’ve engaged with directly (if any) have been paid all amounts due and payable relevant to the contract, including retention amounts. These amounts do not include any amounts that may be in dispute between you and your subcontractors, but those amounts must be separately identified.
Your Supporting Statement has to be true at time of signing and in the proper form (prescribed by the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Regulation 2008).
