What to agree with your project manager before the first transfer

Most arguments about a build are not really about money. They are about an expectation that was never stated, discovered late, when it is expensive to fix and awkward to raise. The cheapest hour you will spend on a construction project is the one before the first transfer.

This applies whether the person running your site is a professional project manager, a builder working directly, or your brother. Arguably it matters most in the last case, because nobody wants to put a contract in front of family — and precisely for that reason nothing gets written down.

If you haven't chosen anyone yet, start with how to find a builder or project manager you can trust, from abroad.

1. What each phase includes, and what it doesn't

“Foundation” means different things to different builders. Does it include excavation? Hardcore fill? The slab? Damp proofing? Agree the boundary of each phase in plain words, and where one phase ends the next begins.

You are not trying to write a specification. You are trying to make sure that when someone says “the foundation is done”, you both mean the same thing.

2. Who buys the materials

There are three common arrangements, and they behave very differently:

• You buy, they build. Most control, most work for you, and it requires someone trustworthy to receive deliveries.
• They buy against receipts. The common middle ground. Works well with same-day receipts, badly without them.
• A fixed price including materials. Simplest to track, but the price carries their risk, and any change becomes a negotiation.

Pick one deliberately. Drifting between them is where disputes come from.

3. How receipts work

Agree the rule out loud: every purchase gets a receipt, photographed the day it happens. Agree what to do when a supplier genuinely won't give one — a note with the date, item, amount and supplier name, recorded the same day, is far better than nothing and should be the exception rather than the habit.

Frame this as protection for them, because it is. A complete record means nobody has to rely on anyone's memory six months later.

Agree where the receipts go, too. If they log each payment with its photo on the day, and you approve it from wherever you are, the record keeps itself current and neither of you has to chase the other at month end.

4. The payment schedule

Tie money to milestones rather than to dates where you can: a payment when the foundation is signed off, another when walls reach lintel level. Dates reward waiting; milestones reward finishing.

Avoid paying far ahead of the work. A large float sitting with someone else is a strain on them as much as a risk to you — it invites borrowing between phases, and it makes the running balance meaningless.

5. Labour: how it's counted and when it's paid

Day rate, fixed price for the task, or a weekly wage for a crew? How many people are expected on site, and who decides when extra hands are brought in? Labour is the cost most likely to drift, because it is the one thing that keeps accruing whether or not materials arrived that week.

6. What happens when a price changes

Cement goes up. A supplier runs out and the alternative costs more. The plot turns out to need more fill than anyone expected. These are normal, and they are not the problem — the problem is finding out afterwards.

Agree a threshold: anything that adds more than a set amount to a phase gets a message before it is bought, not after. Make the number generous enough that you are not consulted about a bag of nails, and low enough that it catches the things that matter.

7. The reporting rhythm

A fixed day each week for a short update: what was spent, what was done, what is next, anything blocked. Short and boring is the goal. A weekly note that says “nothing moved, waiting on the plumber” is a useful report, and it is much easier to keep honest than a long one.

Pair it with the photo rhythm from tracking a build from abroad: same day, same angle.

8. Who else can see the record

Say plainly who will have access — a sibling, a parent, a second contributor — and that the record is shared rather than a way of checking up on one person. Access decided at the start is administration. Access added mid-build, after a disagreement, feels like an accusation.

Write it down, even with family

None of this needs a lawyer. A message thread that lists these eight points, agreed by both people, is enough to prevent the great majority of build disputes — not because anyone would go back and enforce it, but because writing it down is what surfaces the disagreements while they are still cheap.

Then keep the record somewhere both of you can see. That is what Trace My Build is for: one shared ledger of what was sent and what was spent, payments your project manager logs from site with the receipt for you to approve, photos against each phase, and a link your family can open without creating an account.