Milestones: paying in stages

Why milestones

For anything beyond a small one-off job, staging the work protects both sides. The provider never works too far ahead of the payment; the customer never RELEASES funds too far ahead of the work. The funding and the releasing are separate events: the customer commits the whole schedule to the trust account at the start, and then lets it go one stage at a time.

How they work

• Agree the stages up front - for a renovation that might be materials, rough-in, and completion.
• The customer usually funds the whole schedule in one bank payment before the work starts; very large amounts or bank limits may need several. Every stage lands in its own escrow, so the provider can see the entire job is covered rather than hoping stage three gets funded on the day stage two is approved.
• You approve each stage as it completes; approving one release does not touch the others.
• Paying once does not mean paying the provider once. Nothing reaches them until you release that stage - the funds sit in the trust account until you say so.
• Raising a dispute freezes every stage that is currently holding funds, not only the one you are unhappy with - so nothing pays out anywhere on the job while it is being sorted. Stages you have already released are unaffected; those funds have gone.

Changing scope mid-job

Jobs change. If the scope grows or shrinks, agree the change in the job thread and adjust the remaining milestones. A written trail inside the platform is what makes changes enforceable later.