Money

How to Ask for a Deposit Without Losing the Job

BuilderBuddy · 26 August 2026 · 7 min read

Search "how much deposit should a builder ask for" and read the first ten results. Every one of them is written for the customer, not for you. "What's normal and what's a red flag." "Builder wants 50%? Here's when to walk away." "How much deposit should you pay a builder."

That is the conversation your customer has already had with Google before she rings you. By the time you ask for money up front, she has been told by half a dozen websites to be suspicious of exactly that request.

So this one is written the other way round: how to ask for a deposit in a way that gets a yes, and the one legal trap that can undo it months later.

Why You Want One, Said Plainly

A deposit does two jobs, and only one of them is about cash flow.

The obvious one: you are about to buy materials with your own money. On a bathroom that might be two grand of sanitaryware sitting in your van before you have earned a penny.

The one nobody says out loud: a deposit is a commitment test. A customer who will not put anything down is a customer who is still shopping, and you find that out for the price of a phone call rather than after you have turned two other jobs away and blocked out a fortnight.

How Much Is Normal

There is no legal limit. There is a strong convention, and going outside it is what sets off every alarm those homeowner-facing articles have installed.

1
Small jobs, under about a grandOften nothing at all. If you can carry the materials cost for a day, asking for money up front on a £400 job costs you more in goodwill than it gains you in float.
2
Materials-heavy jobsAsk for the materials, not a percentage. "The units and the worktop are £2,140, I need that up front and the rest on completion" is a sentence nobody argues with, because it is obviously not profit.
3
Bigger jobs, a fortnight or moreStage it. A modest deposit, a payment part-way through tied to something visible being finished, and the balance at the end.

The 50% rule of thumb, and why it hurts you. Ask for half up front on a domestic job and you are asking for the exact figure every consumer article names as the warning sign. You may be completely straight and still lose the job to someone asking for 30%. If you genuinely need half because the materials are half, say so in those words.

The Bit Almost Nobody Tells Tradesmen

Here is the one that matters, and I have not found a single trade blog on the first page of that search that mentions it.

When you agree a job in someone's home, that is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. Standing in her kitchen shaking hands counts. And an off-premises contract gives your customer a 14-day right to cancel.

Not 14 days to change her mind about the colour. Fourteen days to cancel the contract outright.

Two things that make this worse than it sounds. First, not telling her about the right to cancel before you enter the contract is a criminal offence under those Regulations, not a technicality. Second, if you never tell her, the 14 days do not quietly expire. The cancellation window extends to 14 days from whenever you finally do tell her, and can run for up to 12 months. A deposit taken on a job agreed at the kitchen table, with nothing in writing about cancellation, is a deposit that can be pulled back the following spring.

How to Start Work Inside the 14 Days Anyway

Nobody is asking you to sit on your hands for a fortnight. The Regulations have the answer built in, and it is straightforward.

If the customer expressly asks you to start within the cancellation period, you can start. You have to tell her that if she then cancels, she pays the reasonable cost of the work you have already done. Get that request from her in writing, even if writing means a text message saying "yes, please start Monday".

There is also an exemption worth knowing: if she specifically called you out for urgent repairs or maintenance, there is no cancellation right at all. The burst pipe on a Sunday is not the same as the bathroom she has been thinking about since March.

The Words That Get a Yes

Most deposits get refused because of how they are asked for, not how much they are for. Three things make the difference.

1
Ask before she has to askPut the payment terms on the quote. A deposit that appears on the quote she is reading is part of the price. A deposit that comes up in a phone call after she has said yes feels like a change of terms.
2
Tie it to something, not to a percentage"£2,140 for the units and the worktop" beats "30% deposit". One is a cost she can picture and check; the other is a number you have chosen.
3
Say what she gets for it"That books your dates and gets the units ordered." A deposit that buys her something specific is not the same request as a deposit that just moves money to you.

Never Take It in Cash Only

Cash is fine as one option. Cash as the only option is the single loudest red flag on every one of those homeowner articles, and it costs you jobs with careful customers.

Bank transfer should be your default, with your account details printed on the quote and the invoice so she is not texting you asking where to send it. If she wants to pay a chunk by credit card through some other route, let her. Card payments over £100 carry protections she may want, and a customer who feels protected is a customer who says yes faster.

Put It in Writing, Because That Is the Whole Defence

Every problem in this article has the same fix. A written quote that states the price, what is included, when each payment falls due, and her cancellation rights.

Do that and the deposit stops being a request she has to trust you on. It becomes a term she agreed to before you ordered anything, with a date on it, which is exactly what you want six weeks later if the conversation goes wrong.

Set the payment terms once, on the quote

BuilderBuddy writes the quote from a sentence about the job, and the payment schedule goes on it before it is sent. Deposit, stages, or the whole thing on completion. Your customer sees what she is agreeing to and taps yes, and every invoice afterwards comes off that agreement rather than being typed out again.

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One Last Thing About Deposits and Trust

The reason all those articles telling homeowners to be careful exist is that some people have taken deposits and never come back. You are paying for that, and there is nothing fair about it.

The way through is not asking for less. It is being the one tradesman she deals with who put it all in writing before she paid anything.

This is general information, not legal advice. The Regulations covered here apply to consumer contracts in the UK. If you are in a dispute over a deposit that is worth real money, take proper advice. Trading Standards guidance for businesses is published free at businesscompanion.info.

Frequently asked questions

How much deposit should a tradesman ask for in the UK?

There is no legal limit, but the convention on domestic work is 10% to 30%, or the cost of the materials where those are the bulk of the job. Asking for 50% up front is the figure most consumer advice names as a warning sign, so even an honest request at that level can cost you the job. On materials-heavy work, ask for the materials cost by name rather than a percentage: it is obviously not profit, so it rarely gets argued with.

Is it legal to ask for a deposit before starting work?

Yes. There is no law against asking for money up front for building or trade work, and no cap on the amount. What the law does control is the information you must give the customer first, particularly where the contract is agreed in her home. Get that part wrong and the deposit is at risk even though asking for it was perfectly legal.

Can a customer cancel and get their deposit back?

If you agreed the job at her home, it is an off-premises contract under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 and she has 14 days to cancel. If you never told her about that right, the window extends to 14 days from whenever you do tell her, up to a maximum of 12 months. She can also expressly ask you to start inside the 14 days, in which case she owes you the reasonable cost of the work done up to the point she cancels, but only if you told her that in advance.

Do I have to tell customers about their right to cancel?

Yes, and it is not optional. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 you must give the customer information about the right to cancel before entering into an off-premises contract, and failing to do so is a criminal offence, not just a civil problem. The simplest way to comply is to put the cancellation terms on the written quote she agrees to.

Does the 14-day cancellation right apply to emergency callouts?

No. Where the customer has specifically asked you to call out to carry out urgent repairs or maintenance, there is no cancellation right. A burst pipe on a Sunday is not the same as a bathroom she has been planning for months, and the two are treated differently.

Should I take a deposit in cash?

Take it however she wants to pay, but never make cash the only option. Cash-only is the single most cited warning sign in consumer advice about tradesmen, so insisting on it costs you careful customers. Put your bank details on the quote and the invoice so she does not have to ask where to send it.