CONSTRUCTION COMPANION UK & USA
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Construction Companion brings together firsthand trade experience and professional UK legal knowledge to create construction contract templates, agreements and Terms & Conditions designed for the work tradespeople actually carry out. We've been doing it since 2008.
Our tradespeople want stronger payment terms, clearer responsibilities, fewer loopholes and better protection when problems arise on a real construction job.
Our legal team has another responsibility: making sure the contractual wording remains fair, enforceable and compliant with the legislation relevant to the agreement.
It isn't unusual for the two sides to challenge each other. The trade side pushes for practical protection. The legal side tests the wording, balance and legal position.
Only once both sides are satisfied does a document become part of the Construction Companion collection.
That's deliberate. A good construction contract has to work legally, but it also has to work when it's actually handed to a customer.
Does this cover what really happens on site? What if the customer changes the work? What if hidden defects are uncovered? What happens when another contractor causes a delay? Are payment stages clear? Are the customer's responsibilities actually written down?
Is the clause fair? Is the wording clear? Does consumer legislation need to be considered? Are cancellation rights relevant? Could the provision create an unfair imbalance? Does the agreement properly explain what each side is expected to do?
Our construction contract templates don't begin in a document generator. They begin with knowledge gathered from people who understand the work.
Experienced tradespeople identify recurring problems, disputes, responsibilities and customer misunderstandings from real jobs.
Trade authors, writers and legal professionals work together to turn those real-world issues into structured contractual terms.
The document returns to the trade to make sure useful protection hasn't disappeared beneath unnecessary legal jargon.
Only after the trade and legal review process is complete is the finished contract approved for the Construction Companion collection.
The document doesn't simply pass from a tradesperson to a solicitor and stop there. It is reviewed, questioned and refined until the legal wording and practical trade knowledge work together.
Decades of experience from working tradespeople help shape our construction contracts. Each trade faces its own problems, from site risks and payment disagreements to customer expectations, unexpected conditions and disputes over what was originally included. Those real experiences become the starting point.
Our authors are experienced tradespeople. The problems they've faced first-hand become the foundation of each agreement. Writers and legal professionals then develop those insights into clear contractual terms while considering the legal requirements relevant to the type of agreement being created.
With the draft complete, our tradespeople carry out another review. They ask whether the terms are still practical for real jobs and understandable to customers. If useful wording has become buried in legal jargon, it goes back for further work.
With trade knowledge, writer collaboration, legal review and trade feedback complete, the contract is finalised. The result combines real construction experience, trade-specific terms and professional legal knowledge in paperwork designed to be confidently used with customers and clients.
Good workmanship is only one part of running a construction business. The way work is agreed, documented, changed and managed can matter too. These are exactly the kinds of issues our trade and legal teams consider when developing our UK construction contract templates.
Qualifying distance and off-premises consumer contracts can carry a 14-day cancellation period. That can be highly relevant to tradespeople agreeing work in a customer's home, over the telephone or through other distance-selling methods. The circumstances in which the agreement was made matter — which is why professional cancellation paperwork should never be treated as an afterthought.
Where statutory cancellation rights apply, beginning a service during the cancellation period has its own legal requirements. A customer simply wanting an urgent start should not be treated as a reason to forget the relevant paperwork. How early performance is requested and recorded can matter.
Under UK consumer law, a service supplied by a trader to a consumer includes a requirement that the service is performed with reasonable care and skill. Professional contract wording therefore has to work alongside statutory consumer rights rather than pretending those rights don't exist.
Variations are one of the most familiar causes of construction disputes. The original scope changes, additional work is requested and suddenly the parties remember the conversation differently. Good construction paperwork creates a process for recording variations, additional costs and changes to the programme.
Construction programmes can be affected by weather, materials, manufacturers, access, customer decisions, designers, consultants, other contractors and third parties. A professional agreement should distinguish between the contractor's responsibilities and events that may genuinely sit outside their control.
Roof coverings hide timber. Bathrooms hide pipework. Floors hide substrates. Existing buildings can contain defects that could not reasonably be confirmed from the initial quotation visit. Discovery of additional work needs a clear contractual process rather than an argument halfway through the project.
In England, the building regulations dutyholder and competence regime places responsibilities on clients, designers and contractors involved in building work. Contractors can have duties around planning, managing and monitoring their work, cooperation, communication, compliance and the competence of people they appoint.
Bringing subbies onto a project creates another contractual relationship. Scope, workmanship, conduct, payment, responsibilities and required standards should be understood by both sides. Modern building regulations can also place competence-related responsibilities on contractors who appoint others to carry out building work.
Generic construction contracts can deal with obvious subjects such as price and payment. But the disputes that happen on a roof are not always the disputes that happen during a bathroom installation.
Our contract templates are built from firsthand experience in the trades they're made for. We know where misunderstandings happen, what customers commonly question and which responsibilities need to be made clear — because our contributors have dealt with them themselves.
Weather, hidden timber defects, existing coverings, access, scaffold, additional repairs and changing roof conditions all create issues that generic paperwork can overlook.
Existing pipework, access, system condition, customer-supplied products, additional work and interaction with existing services can all affect the final job.
Plumbing, tiling, electrical work, preparation, products, waterproofing, existing substrates and customer choices can all overlap within a single bathroom project.
System design, DNO processes, roof suitability, electrical work, equipment, warranties, third-party requirements and customer expectations create a very different contractual environment.
Existing surfaces, preparation, drying conditions, colours, customer expectations and work by others can directly affect the finished result.
Clients, architects, consultants, principal contractors, subcontractors, programmes, information and payment processes can make responsibilities far more complex than on a straightforward domestic job.
Every Construction Companion document reflects real on-site experience and includes trade-specific terms while ensuring full legal compliance. Our legal review process considers the legislation and contractual principles relevant to the agreement, while our trade contributors make sure the finished document remains practical enough to use in the real world. That combination is central to how we create professional paperwork for the UK construction industry.
Our approach combines construction industry knowledge, trade-specific experience and professional legal input to produce paperwork made for tradespeople and construction businesses.
Experienced tradespeople contribute the real-world knowledge that forms the foundation of our construction contracts.
Writers and legal professionals turn trade experience into structured, professional contractual wording.
Different trades create different risks, responsibilities and customer expectations. Our documents are built accordingly.
Our trade reviewers challenge unnecessary jargon so professional protection doesn't come at the expense of understandable paperwork.
The recurring disagreements our contributors have encountered help us identify what should be made clear before work begins.
Professional construction contracts, agreements and Terms & Conditions developed specifically for tradespeople and construction businesses.
Choose professional, trade-specific construction contract templates built from firsthand industry experience and finalised with input from our UK legal team. Clear paperwork for tradespeople who want to get the terms agreed, protect the working relationship and get on with the job.
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