We're owed money and haven't used the remedy we have

Being owed money while working at full pace is a strange position: you are funding their cash flow, and the only pressure being applied is another chasing email. Most unpaid parties believe their choices are to keep chasing or to start a dispute, so the account drifts another month while the workload stays the same.

The Construction Act says otherwise. Where the notified sum has not been paid in full by the final date for payment, section 112 gives the unpaid party the right to suspend performance of some or all of its obligations, after giving at least seven days' written notice of the intention to suspend, stating the ground. The right ends when payment lands in full, and the Act adds consequences that point the other way for once: entitlement to more time and to reasonable costs flowing from a lawful suspension.

The reason almost nobody serves it is fear of getting it wrong, and the fear is not silly: downing tools without the right ground or the right notice looks like walking off the job, with everything that follows from that. The discipline is the protection: the precondition checked, the notice in valid form, the period observed, work resumed when the money arrives. And where the account is so bad that termination is in the air, that is a conversation to have with a solicitor before anything is served.

If you would rather it were done for you, Emergency Notice Desk is the service that does it.