The developer's money is where every payment on the job begins. If it isn't really there — or if the company holding it is a shell built for this one site — everyone downstream works for free. Main contractors and subcontractors get caught the same way: dazzled by the size of the scheme, they forget to ask the only question that actually matters. Can this client pay?
Why developers need checking as hard as contractors
Developments are very often run through a special-purpose company set up for a single site, with few assets and no trading history. That is perfectly normal and perfectly legal — but it means the company you're contracting with may have almost nothing to pursue if the scheme fails. The glossy brochure and the famous project name tell you nothing about whether the entity signing your contract can honour it.
1. Find out who really holds the money
- Is the client a newly formed or single-project company? Check the incorporation date and the filed accounts on Companies House. A company created weeks before the project, with no assets, carries the risk entirely on you.
- Who stands behind it? Developers often sit under a parent or a well-known backer. Find out whether that backer actually guarantees payment — or whether the shell is on its own.
- Is the funding secured? Registered charges can show a scheme is funded by a lender. That lender gets paid before you do if things go wrong.
2. Check the payment history and the reputation
A developer's past behaviour is the best predictor of your future. The questions that matter:
- Do they pay certified sums on time, or stretch them?
- Do they raise spurious deductions or dispute agreed variations?
- Do they release retention when it's due?
- Do they have a history of adjudication or court action with contractors?
This is exactly the kind of hard, structured data CIX collects — from the main contractors and subcontractors who've already worked for them. One search can save you from becoming the next cautionary tale.
3. Screen for the phoenix pattern
The most dangerous developers aren't the ones who fail once — they're the ones who fail on purpose, let the debts die with the company, and reappear under a new name to do it again. If the directors have dissolved companies mid-project before, that's the loudest warning there is. Our guide to phoenix companies shows you how to spot the same faces behind a new shell.
4. The warning signs a client is trouble
- Pressure to start on site before the contract is signed.
- Vagueness about payment terms, or resistance to putting them in writing.
- “We'll sort retention later” — the money they never intend to pay.
- Asking you to fund materials or mobilise at your own risk “to build trust”.
Before you commit a single day
- Check the client on CIX — and look at the directors' other companies for dissolutions.
- Insist on a signed contract with clear payment terms before anyone lifts a tool.
- Stage your exposure. Don't run a large unpaid balance forward on the strength of a promise.
- Report what you find afterwards — good or bad. It's free, and it's how the trade protects itself.
You can't always choose your clients — but you can choose to know them before you start. Search a developer or client now, or add a report on one you've been paid by (or fought to be paid by).