Construction and trades
Construction is the sector where the money goes out furthest ahead of coming in. Mobilise, buy material, pay the crew, submit the progress claim, wait, and then wait again for the holdback.
How the balance sheet reads.
Holdback under the Construction Act is a receivable a lender will discount heavily or exclude, which surprises owners every time.
Equipment and vehicles finance readily and quickly, which makes the fleet the most useful asset on the balance sheet.
Percentage of completion accounting makes the interim statements harder to read. A clear work in progress schedule fixes that.
Prompt payment under the Construction Act sets the clock: an owner has 28 days from a proper invoice to pay or to serve a notice of non payment, and a contractor then has seven days to pay its subcontractors. Interim adjudication runs alongside it, with a determination due 30 days after the adjudicator gets the documents.
That matters to a lender, not just to a lawyer. A contractor who issues proper invoices and uses adjudication has a receivable book with a defined payment date and a live remedy behind it, which is a materially better margining case than one whose collection story is a conversation.
What usually does the work here.
WHERE IT GETS DIFFICULT
- Bonding capacity and financing compete for the same balance sheet. Sequence them deliberately.
- Lien and trust obligations sit ahead of a lender in priority. Both sides know it.
- Equipment and vehicle financingDriven by asset value, commonly $25,000 to $5,000,000 Finance sized against the asset itself, for machinery, fleet and production systems, including sale and leaseback on equipment you already own.
- Working capital and lines of credit$50,000 to $2,000,000 Revolving credit sized against deposits, receivables and inventory, for the gap between paying suppliers and getting paid.
- Private and alternative lending$100,000 to $5,000,000 Non bank capital for a deal that is time sensitive, asset backed, or does not fit a bank credit box, priced accordingly.
A construction and trades file, read properly.
Tell us the amount and the purpose, and we will say what is realistic in this sector.
No lender hears your name until you say so.
A request emailed to twenty lenders leaves twenty records. The next one to see it reads the declines before they read the deal, and a file that looks shopped is priced as one. So the list is built with you, approved by you in writing, and nothing leaves this office before that.
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