non payment from builder

i am a decorating sub contractor. i have been in the trade for 30 years and never had a bad payer. until now. i have been doing a house up for a builder for 16 weeks. i sent him a terms of business letter from day one saying labour would be billed and a payment expected at the end of every week. i got the 1st payment no problem but had sporadic payments after this. As he hasnt been paying the full amount of the weekly invoices he now owes me £1250. which was due and unpaid on december 17th. Since that date he has met up with me and handed me a defects list which he expects me to do for nothing. I have worked for 2 other builders and they always pay me for snagging near completion but this builder wants me to do this out of my own pocket. can anybody give me advice. All he seams to be doing is to keep critisising my work yet ive always been upfront, had a high standard and had many great testimonials from customers. how do i get him to pay what he owes me.

If they claiming bad workmanship and you are shore that there is noting wrong with the works that you put up just get the copy of the British standards in painting and decorating and go true the whole project with the client after that do him letter informing him that your works are in accordance with the standards. You can also use a independent adviser from the brand that supplies you with the materials or other authorities there is such a companies.And If the snaggings are not yours then he have to pay for them, the only one think that I know from the past is thet painter paint a bad wall meaning bad plastering bad tape and jointing this automatically makes the builders thinks that you are excepting the works of the others and everything else after that is your problem. And again what can be the panderers snagging if the builders can not keep the rooms clear of dust and people working there pushing and kicking stuff against walls and skirting boards the roller marks are the smallest problem!

I agree with what you have said. To help others on this posting what i have done is to go through each of the defects that were highlighted. Get them signed off and then approached the householder to tell her how much the builder owes me. She has written a cheque for £1500 for the work so far as ive more to complete. I have byepassed the builder and gone direct to the client. They will take the money paid to me out of his next interim payment. Every tradesmen working on this job is owed money by the builder so i decided to go direct to the client.