A pay less notice has landed. What it has to say, and what to do next.
A pay less notice is the payer's last lawful word on a payment cycle. If it is valid, the sum it states is what you get paid this cycle, whatever your application said. So the first question is never "is this fair?": it is "is this valid?", and validity has three limbs.
Updated: 22 August 2026
Timing. The notice must be served no later than the period your contract sets before the final date for payment. Read that period off your contract's amendments, not the standard form: shortened pay less periods are one of the most common amendments in subcontracts. Count in calendar days under the contract's own counting rules. A notice served even one day late is no notice at all.
Substance. Under section 111 of the Construction Act, the notice must state the sum the payer considers due and the basis on which that sum is calculated. A bare figure with nothing behind it, or a one-word reason like "snagging" with no schedule, no locations and no build-up, is open to challenge: a deduction that cannot be tested is a deduction that struggles at adjudication.
Service. Right form, right sender, right recipient, right method: all as the contract's notice provisions require. A notice emailed to the wrong address, or signed by someone the contract does not authorise, has a problem.
If the notice fails any limb, the notified sum, usually your application, is payable in full at the final date for payment. If it holds, the money is lawfully withheld this cycle, but nothing stops you re-presenting the disputed sum in your next application, marked as disputed, with the evidence behind it.
Either way, respond in writing, this cycle, and put the notice's deadline machinery in a diary that chases you. Most of the money lost to pay less notices is not lost to valid ones; it is lost to invalid ones that nobody checked in time.
Where to go next
The free Notice & Deadline Register holds every one of these dates, counting down. For the notice itself, Payment & Pay Less Notice Checking & Response reads each one against the contract while the cycle is open, and the Emergency Notice Desk exists for the same-day cases.