THE PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF CURRENT CONSTRUCTION PAYMENT PRACTICES IN THE UK CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

Current payment methods have many faults which are detrimental to the formation and completion of a project. This includes the use of unfair payment terms, pricing strategies and payment mechanisms between the contracting parties. This resulted in being criticised and remain in doubt, the use of current payment methods to reward good contractors and to distinguish poorly performed construction firms. In order to have an insight into this issue, a structured survey was conducted amongst UK construction practitioners. It was found that traditional pricing methods (i.e. lump sum and unit price), payment methods (i.e. interim valuation) and retention still dominate current practice. The empirical findings show that there are significant differences in the use of pricing and payment methods (when making and receiving payments) in construction. Significant differences also found in the factors affecting the choice of pricing methods when making (and receiving) construction payments. The paper concludes with analysis of the findings and future direction of research in payment systems is also provided.