The Contractor Payment Schedule That Protects You

The single most protective sentence in any repair project is a payment schedule written into the contract. I learned that after Hurricane Ian, the expensive way. The contractor who took a piece of my settlement did not defeat some sophisticated defense of mine. There was no schedule to defeat. Here is the structure I wish I had used, and why each piece matters.

The shape of a safe schedule

• Deposit: modest, never more. A reasonable deposit is 10 to 30 percent. It covers real mobilization: materials ordered, permits filed, a crew scheduled. Anything approaching half the job before work begins is not a deposit. It is your leverage, leaving.
• Progress payments tied to finished work, not dates. Pay when a stage is complete and you have seen it: demolition done, roof dried in, drywall hung. A payment tied to a calendar date pays for time passing. A payment tied to a milestone pays for work existing.
• The final payment is your only leverage for the punch list. Hold a meaningful last payment (often 10 to 15 percent) until the work is complete, the site is clean, and any required inspections have passed. A contractor who has been paid in full has no financial reason to come back for the small things. Most never do.

What Florida law says about that deposit

Florida gives homeowners a specific protection worth knowing by name. Under Florida Statute 489.126, when you pay a contractor more than 10 percent of the contract price for a job that needs a building permit, the contractor must apply for that permit within 30 days, and must start the work within 90 days after the permit issues. A contractor who takes your money and does neither, without good cause or a refund, is breaking the law, not just behaving badly.

That statute exists because what happened to me happens often enough that the legislature wrote a rule about it.

Three habits that make the schedule work

• Put it in the contract, in numbers. "50 percent up front and the rest when we finish" is not a schedule. "$4,000 on signing, $6,000 at dry-in, $6,000 at drywall complete, $4,000 on final inspection" is one. If a contractor resists writing numbers down, that is your answer about the contractor.
• Pay in ways that leave a record. Check or card, never cash. The paper trail is not about distrust. It is the evidence your claim, your taxes, and any future dispute will ask for. Keep every receipt; a shoebox counts.
• Ask for lien releases as you pay. In plain words: a signed statement that the contractor, and the suppliers behind them, have been paid for the work your check covered. It protects your home from a claim by a supplier the contractor never paid (Florida calls these construction liens).

The pressure test

A legitimate contractor hears this schedule and recognizes a customer who has done business before. The dangerous one hears it and pushes back hard, usually with urgency: materials have to be ordered today, the crew needs to be locked in, the price only holds if you pay now. Urgency around money is a sales tactic, and after a storm it is the oldest one there is.

The contractor who took part of my settlement asked for most of the money early. I gave it to him because the schedule in the contract was his, not mine.

Before any of this, verify the license. It takes three minutes on the state's own website, and the full 15 red flags cover the rest of the vetting.