Progress payments and cashflow during a Brisbane build

The first shock of a Brisbane build is rarely the slab. It is the realisation that money leaves in lumps, on someone else’s timetable, while you are still paying rent or a mortgage on the old place. Households that survive this are not the ones with the prettiest mood board. They are the ones who read the progress schedule the week they read the contract.

This is a cashflow essay. The companion pieces are the costs guide and the hidden costs that never appear as a stage claim.

What a progress claim is

A progress claim is the builder asking to be paid for a defined stage: deposit, base, frame, enclosed, fixing, practical completion — or whatever names the particular Queensland form uses. The names are not poetry. They are gates. If the contract says “frame stage” then the claim should arrive when the frame is complete in the sense the document describes, not when the timber has been delivered and the supervisor is optimistic.

Owners get into trouble in two directions. They pay early because they like the builder and want to be “easy”. They withhold late because they are frightened and have discovered the kitchen splashback is not the one from Instagram. Both are how ordinary jobs become legal files.

Write, every time. If a stage is not complete, say which item is missing. If a variation has not been signed, say so. If you are paying, say what you are paying. The email is the job.

The lender is not your friend, and not your enemy

Most construction loans release money after the lender’s valuer or inspector agrees the stage exists. That visit can lag the builder’s claim by a week that feels like a month. Interest is already running on what has been drawn. Rent is still due. This is why a buffer is not a personality trait. It is a programme.

Ask the broker, in writing, how many business days a stage release usually takes, who books the inspection, and what happens if the inspector and the builder disagree about “enclosed”. Then ask the builder the same questions. The gap between the two answers is your cashflow risk.

Do not treat a bank inspection as a quality audit. A valuer can accept a stage that still has a list of defects you care about. Your remedies live in the contract and, in limited cases, in warranty insurance, not in the lender’s checklist.

Deposits and the first real money

Queensland law limits deposits on regulated residential contracts. The percentage depends on the value of the work and the instrument in force when you sign; look up the current figure, do not reuse your cousin’s 2018 number. A builder who wants more than the statutory deposit “to order windows” is asking you to finance their procurement outside the scheme. Sometimes there is a lawful variation path for a long-lead item. Sometimes there is just a cashflow problem wearing a smile.

Pay the lawful deposit to the entity on the contract, not to a related company with a similar name. The licence search and the bank account name should agree.

Variations are how stages stop lining up

A signed variation can change the work without changing the stage names. The house gets a retaining wall; the claim is still called “base”. If the variation is priced and approved, it should appear as a line, not as a vibe in the next invoice. If it is not priced, you do not yet have a variation. You have a conversation that will later pretend to be a debt.

Fixed-price and cost-plus fail differently here. Fixed-price jobs hide the fight in “that was never included”. Cost-plus jobs hide it in a growing pile of invoices that nobody reconciled against a budget. Either way, keep a running register: date, description, price, who approved.

Living costs while the house is a hole

Interest during construction, storage, rent, extra fuel to the site, a temporary fence the dog cannot climb — these do not appear as progress claims. They appear as the reason a household says yes to a cheap substitution in week twenty. Price them before you pick a facade.

If you are in a knockdown-rebuild you may have a period with no house and two lots of fees. If you are on a vacant block in Ipswich or Logan you may be paying estate levies and a construction loan before there is a roof. The costs and contracts hub exists because the house price is not the project price.

A working method

• Put the stage schedule on one page next to the lender’s release rules.
• Keep a cash buffer you can name out loud.
• Pay complete stages promptly.
• Query incomplete stages promptly, with photographs.
• Do not redesign the house to manage anxiety.

If you want the rest of the money story, read the costs guide and then the new homes sequence from contract to week-by-week site life. Cashflow is not a side topic. It is the weather the job happens in.

Prime cost items and the claim that arrives early

Tapware, appliances and some finishes sit in the contract as prime cost or provisional sums. They are estimates wearing a number. When the owner selects a mixer that costs twice the allowance, the difference is not a betrayal. It is arithmetic. What becomes a cashflow problem is selecting it late, after the stage that was supposed to include its installation, and then meeting a variation and a delay together.

Make selections before the stage that needs them. If you cannot, say so and accept a programme consequence. Do not be surprised when a builder claims a stage that is “complete except for the items you have not chosen”. That sentence is a meeting. Have it before the invoice.

Interest, rent and the quiet second mortgage

Drawdown interest is easy to underestimate because it appears as a line in a portal, not as a skip on the lawn. Add it to rent or to the old mortgage and you have a monthly figure that would have changed the facade conversation. Households that ignore it start asking the builder to hurry in ways that produce defects. Households that price it can stay courteous.

If you are living in a renovation rather than a vacant-lot build, the cashflow is worse in a different way: you are funding two ways of cooking, a storage unit, and a house that is half a workplace. The progress claim is then landing on a kitchen that does not exist. The same rules apply. Complete stages get paid. Incomplete stages get a letter.

Keep one spreadsheet that a tired person can read at 10pm: claims paid, claims queried, variations approved, buffer remaining, estimated weeks to handover. If you cannot keep that spreadsheet, you are not ready to improvise a cost-plus adventure. Hire simplicity. The paper will still be the job.