Payment Milestone
Sheet under review by our engineersA payment milestone is a clearly defined and pre-agreed key point in the project when a portion of the payment is due. It's like progress stages: you pay a percentage when the foundations are complete, another when the walls are up, and so on.
Why it matters for your home
This system protects your money and ensures the contractor is paid for work actually completed. It prevents paying large sums for undone or poorly done work, and guarantees that the construction site progresses according to schedule. This is crucial when building remotely!
The African context
Often, there's strong pressure to pay significant amounts in advance, supposedly for materials. Without clear milestones, you risk ending up with a stalled construction site after already having paid a lot of money.
Red flags
- ⚠ The contractor requests a very large sum right at the start of the project (over 30%).
- ⚠ Payment milestones are not linked to concrete and verifiable stages (e.g., 'when the first phase is finished' without details).
- ⚠ There's no written contract stipulating the milestones and percentages for each stage.
- ⚠ The contractor pressures you to pay a milestone when the stage isn't completely finished.
Questions to ask
- 1. "What is the precise payment schedule and what are the exact work stages associated with each payment?"
- 2. "How will we jointly verify that each milestone is reached before I proceed with the payment?"
- 3. "What is the percentage of the total cost to be paid for each milestone?"
Related terms
At this stage of your project?
An independent DiasporaBuild inspector can verify on site before you pay.