How payments work

Contractor sends a quote.
Scope, milestones, milestone amounts and the 5% retention are set out in the quote.
Homeowner accepts.
Acceptance is recorded with a date and time.
Identity checks.
Both parties complete identity verification before any money moves.
Homeowner funds the first milestone.
By bank transfer or PayID to our payments provider. No cards.
Contractor completes the work and submits evidence.
Photos, documents and certificates are attached to the milestone.
Homeowner reviews and approves.
The approval is the instruction to pay. Renosafe passes it to our payments provider.
Our payments provider pays the contractor, less the 5% retention, which stays in the homeowner’s wallet.
Next milestone is funded.
Approving one milestone triggers the request to fund the next.
Practical completion.
Once the final milestone is approved and paid, the defects liability period starts.
Retention release.
At the end of the defects liability period, the retention is paid to the contractor unless a defect has been logged.

If there’s a disagreement

Either party can raise a dispute on a milestone. While a dispute is open, that milestone’s funds stay where they are. A dispute ends only when one of these happens:

both parties agree in writing on the platform;
the person who raised it withdraws it; or
an external body (such as a court, tribunal or state building dispute service) makes a binding decision.

Renosafe records the dispute and the outcome. We don’t decide who is right.

If a project is cancelled

Only funds that haven’t been released yet are returned to the homeowner. Payments already approved and made are not reversed by Renosafe.

Variations

Scope changes are recorded as variations. Both parties sign off before a variation changes a milestone amount.