Trusted Payments explained for builders: what it costs, deposits, cash and who holds your money

Last checked on 14 September 2026, the day the company's new terms (version 2.6) came out. We'll update it when they change.

‍‌​‌‌‌‌‌​‌​​‌‌‌‌​‌​‌‌‌​​​‌‌‌​​‌‍The short version, if you're on top of scaffolding.

The good

• £35 plus VAT, once. The customer pays the fees on the stages agreed at the start.
• You set the stages. An upfront or materials payment on day one can be one. Each reaches you the next working day.
• The 10% sits with the ombudsman, not the company. The contract has said so since 14 September.
• Customer goes quiet? 14 days, then the job counts as complete and the 10% is released within 14 days after that.
• Locked out of the snags? The clock stops, and you're not in breach.
• The ombudsman's decision binds your customer too.
• No card payments, so no chargebacks on stages you've already been paid.
• Your admin, done: invoices into Xero or QuickBooks, jobs run from WhatsApp, an 8-week cash-flow forecast.
• Ignore an ombudsman decision and you're struck off, listed and reported to Trading Standards.

The bad

• It doesn't check anyone's work. Registration "is not a guarantee of workmanship", in its own words.
• Add a stage once the job's started and you pay its fee.
• "100,000 traders" means access through schemes like TrustMark, not people using it.
• The ombudsman holding the money also decides the disputes, and the founder sits on its board.
• The contract still calls the 10% a "deposit".
• It's voluntary for you and your customer.

The unknown

• Part-cash jobs. James says they're fine. The new terms say they aren't.
• Your stage payments. They sit with Trusted Payments for a working day. The contract doesn't say what happens if the company fails in that time.
• What comes next. The minister says voluntary "at this stage". The government hasn't answered our questions.
• Who sees your data. James says not the government. The terms don't say what the partner schemes see.

For what we think of it, and why we think the government sold it the wrong way round, read our blog: Good product. Cowboy launch.

What Trusted Payments is

A payment and milestone app for home improvement and energy efficiency work, run by Trusted Payments Ltd, with TrustMark as its first partner. The government named it on 28 August 2026 as part of what it called a crackdown on cowboy builders. It's voluntary for the trade and the customer.

We spoke to its owner, James Walker, on the record on 11 September 2026. Quotes are from that call unless we say otherwise.

How a job works

You set the stages. The company's trade guide puts it in two words: "Who sets the milestones? You do." Build your own payment plan or start from one of more than 140 ready-made ones. The customer agrees the stages and prices before work starts. If the job changes, you raise a variation in the app and both sides agree it.

Stage payments. The customer signs off each stage in the app and the money reaches you the next working day. The company's website says it lands at 18:00 the next day, and that the gap lets the customer cancel if something isn't right.

The 10%. At the start, the customer pays 10% of the job into an account controlled by the ombudsman. It's held until the end.

Finishing. When you tell the customer the work's done, they have 14 days to sign it off, list what's still to do, or raise a dispute. The 10% is released within 14 days of completion.

Admin. Invoices go into Xero or QuickBooks, the job runs from WhatsApp, email or the web, and you get an eight-week cash-flow forecast from your stages.

The warranty

• During the job: three months.
• After completion: 12 months for jobs under £2,500, 24 months for everything else (clause 8.1).
• Long jobs: on a job longer than three months, the 12 or 24 months start counting three months in, not at the end.
• Cover: up to £20,000. James told us they are "starting with a maximum £20k claim", rising in October to cover jobs up to £100,000. The contract caps the company's total liability at £20,000 (clause 9.4 of the service terms) and lets it change the warranty arrangements with notice (clause 15.2).
• Payout: James says a claim the ombudsman upholds is paid in three working days, because the insurer accepts that decision rather than investigating again.
• Who backs it: an FCA-authorised insurer. Trusted Payments says it isn't the insurer and isn't regulated by the FCA.

What it costs

• You: £35 plus VAT, once. James: "Per trade once."
• Your customer: the transaction fees on the stages agreed at the start.
• Stages added after the job starts: the fee is yours. Clause 6.1: "where additional milestones are added to a project after commencement, any transaction fee relating to those additional milestones shall be payable by the Contractor". Get your stages in before you start.
• How much the customer pays: a flat fee, not a percentage, tiered by how much cover the job needs. On the current £20,000 cover, the consumer journalist Helen Dewdney reported £45 or £85, or £25 for jobs under £2,500. James put the fee on a £100,000 job at around £94, and says new tiers come with the higher cover.

Deposits and the 10%

The worry we hear most from builders is losing their deposit. The 10% isn't your deposit. It's the customer's money, held for the end of the job: what the trade would call a retention.

You can still take money up front. The stages are yours to set, and James told us: "all you've got to do is add your milestone and payment for materials." In writing, he added that an upfront payment can be a milestone on day one, paid the next day like every other stage. The first payment "will be received kick off +1 day."

He'd said much the same in public three days before we spoke. On the kbbreview podcast on 8 September he agreed that a kitchen retailer could build its own milestones, a deposit up front included, into the app: "You can set up and run your own payment schedules."

Why the day's delay on every payment? James: "if the consumer was pressured into a payment they can delay it."

The confusion comes from the contract. Clause 3.4 still says the customer "will pay a deposit equal to 10%". The same sum is also called the "Completion Payment" and, in the agency agreement, the "Retention Amount".

Cash

• James, in writing: "The scheme is not to stop cash and we are totally independent of government and we don't share anything with them. The warranty only covers payments via the App as this proves the payment was made."
• Why cash isn't covered: James says it isn't about the government. The insurer can't check a cash payment: "how do I know that this isn't some sort of scam, if somebody's saying, oh yes, I've paid the trade 100,000, and they've paid them five?"
• The catch: clause 7.2(b) of the new terms of use bars using the app to get round its payment process, "including by agreeing with another user that all or part of a project will be taken off the App, paid for outside the App". As written, a part-cash job breaks the terms, and a breach can get you suspended (clause 7.3). James told us cash payments "can still occur with our platform".

Who holds your money

The 10%. An account controlled by the Dispute Resolution Ombudsman (DRO). Clause 2.4 of the new terms: "the Completion Payment is not held by Trusted Payments Limited." The agency agreement says Trusted Payments "has no authority to withdraw, release, transfer or otherwise deal with" it.

Stage payments. These do pass through the company. The customer pays Trusted Payments (clause 6.4), which sends the money on "the next business day". The agency agreement says the customer paying Trusted Payments counts as paying you. The contract doesn't say what happens to that money if the company fails in between.

How it changed. In a fortnight the company's homepage said the ombudsman held the money (1 September), then Trusted Payments (the following week), then the ombudsman again (11 September). Until 14 September the contract said Trusted Payments. Version 2.6 moved it to the ombudsman.

Check the version number before you sign. It was 2.6 when we last looked.

Who decides a dispute

1. Talk first. Both sides try to settle it themselves (clause 14.1).
2. After 14 days, you can both use the ombudsman's online mediation (14.2). If that doesn't settle it, either of you can ask for it to go to the ombudsman (14.3). An allegation of fraud goes there automatically after the 14 days (14.4).
3. The DRO decides. Its decision binds both sides on the warranty and on releasing the 10% (14.5). Nothing in the terms stops either side going to court, and the old 28-day limit on challenging a decision is gone.

"Up until now, it's always been binding on the trade, but not the consumer," James told us. "And I wanted it binding on both parties."

The DRO is run by The Ombuds Group, which also runs the Rail Ombudsman and the Furniture and Home Improvement Ombudsman. James told the kbbreview podcast that the people deciding cases are all legally trained.

If your customer won't pay

• They go quiet. Clause 4.4 gives them 14 days from your completion notice to sign off, list what's left or raise a dispute. If they do none of those, the job counts as complete and the 10% is released within 14 days.
• They hold the money back. Clause 14.3 names "withholding of the Completion Payment" and "refusal to approve completed works" as disputes either side can refer. If the ombudsman finds the customer has unreasonably withheld payment, it can direct the 10% to you (14.8).
• They won't let you back in. Time periods are suspended and you "shall not be treated as being in breach" (14.6).
• What changed. Under the old terms you faced 45 days of negotiation first. Now it's 14, for both sides.

The ombudsman and the founder

The body that holds the money also decides the disputes, and James is a director of both it and Trusted Payments. He raised it himself. His answer on the conflict: the decision process "is ring-fenced, Chinese wall. There's no way for me as a director to be able to influence it." He told us he doesn't mind the directors and their relationships going on the website.

He has said so in public before. On LinkedIn early in 2026 he wrote that the decision on payout is "made not by Trusted Payments but by the Ombudsman". On the kbbreview podcast: "Trusted Payments has two directors that are the same, but the important bit is that an Ombudsman's decision-making process is basically Chinese wall."

Kevin Grix, the Chief Ombudsman, is also a director of Trusted Payments. James: "He is not involved directly in case work."

The company has already changed one word: "We say that the resolution is independent and not that the ombudsman is independent." Our copies of its homepage show "the independent Ombudsman" on 1 September and gone by the 3rd.

Whether the ring-fence works in practice can't be tested from outside.

When a job goes wrong

A job most builders will recognise. The work's done bar the last bits. The customer won't let you back in. He disputes the whole bill with his card provider and gets it back while you appeal. When you win, he wants money to finish it himself, with nothing in writing about what that covers.

The same job on Trusted Payments, going by the company's own documents:

This matches consumer law. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, a customer can make you put faulty work right at your cost (section 55), and only gets a price cut if that's impossible or you don't do it in a reasonable time (section 56). No contract can take those rights away (section 57).

The other side: your customer loses the card chargeback and credit-card cover, and gets a warranty and an ombudsman instead.

What it doesn't do

• Check anyone's work. Its joining form says registration "is not a guarantee of workmanship". James says the problem it tackles is "payment in advance of work being done."
• Give you 100,000 users. The 100,000 is the membership of partner schemes like TrustMark, with access. Asked whether 100,000 would be using it by the end of September, James said no.
• Reach anyone who doesn't join. It's voluntary on both sides.

The struck-off list

Trades who ignore an ombudsman decision, after an appeal, are removed from the app and listed: "I'll list the directors and the companies that have been banned in the app." On customers, James told us: "I've got to check if I can do the same for consumers, but I can't see why not." On GDPR: "I have found a way to deal with that."

What's still unknown

• Whether you can take part of a job in cash. James says yes; clause 7.2(b) of the terms of use says no.
• What happens to a stage payment if Trusted Payments failed during the working day it holds it.
• What happens to small call-outs if the scheme became compulsory. James's gut is that "anything below a £1,000 will probably over-complicate why you need it". The minister says it's voluntary "at this stage" and the government "won't hesitate to act further".
• What the partner schemes see of your project data. James says the government sees nothing.
• What the government plans next. The department and the minister haven't answered our questions, sent on 1 and 8 September.

Sources

• The interview. James Walker, owner and director of Trusted Payments Ltd, by phone on 11 September 2026, on the record by his agreement in writing. Recorded with his agreement once the call was under way; nothing from the unrecorded first ten minutes is quoted. The quotes most open to misreading were sent to him before publication. He replied in writing, and where he reworded a quote we've used his wording.
• Trusted Payments' website, captured and hashed on 1, 3 and 8 September and after the call on 11 September 2026.
• Trusted Payments' terms and conditions, Version 2.6, issued 14 September 2026, read and captured the same day. Where we mention the earlier terms (Version 2.5, issued 30 August 2026), we say so.
• Trusted Payments' trade material: advance copies of the trade guide, the homeowner guide, the "Working for Trades" FAQ and the "Joining Trusted Payments" form, supplied on the record on 8 September 2026 and not yet published.
• The kbbreview podcast, James Walker interviewed by Andy Davies, published 8 September 2026.
• Consumer Rights Act 2015, sections 54 to 57, read on legislation.gov.uk on 11 September 2026.
• You and Yours, BBC Radio 4, 8 September 2026.
• The Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, sent questions in writing through its press office on 1 and 8 September 2026, the second copied to Kate Dearden MP, Minister for Employment Rights and Consumer Protection. Neither had replied when this was last checked.

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