Compare Builders never handles money for your project. You are never charged by us, and we never ask you to pay us or to pay anything through us. You pay your builder directly, on terms you agree with them.
Before you pay anything.
- Get the price, the specification and the payment schedule in writing, and agree them before work starts.
- Tie each payment to work that has been done. A deposit towards materials is normal. Paying for a whole project before work starts is not.
- Pay from an account in your own name, into an account in the name of the business you appointed. Do not pay in cash, and do not pay into a differently named account because you have been asked to.
- Keep the quotation, the schedule and every receipt.
Card payments. If the price of the work is more than £100 and no more than £30,000, paying any part of it by credit card, even just a deposit, can give you a claim against your card provider under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, alongside your claim against the builder. It applies where the work is not done, is not of the standard agreed, or was misrepresented. Section 75 does not cover debit card payments. Those may be recoverable through your bank’s chargeback process, usually if you claim within 120 days of the payment. Your card provider decides those claims, not us. Impartial guidance is at moneyhelper.org.uk. This is general information about how card protection works, not advice on how to pay.