Solve Studio
Opportunity Agent

PaymentNotice Desk

Agentic UK construction payment notice, pay-less notice, and adjudication referral notice drafting service for small subcontractors and main contractors (1–30 staff) on JCT, NEC, and FIDIC contracts. Replaces the quantity surveyor or construction solicitor who charges £800–£3,500 to issue a valid payment application, respond to a withholding notice, or refer a disputed sum to adjudication under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996.

Why now

No fresh signal batch provided today; justified by persistent r/Construction and r/smallbusiness pain around late payment and adjudication costs, and the Prompt Payment Code enforcement activity under the 2024 Late Payments consultation. Cross-references the user's own RFIResponder idea which confirmed construction contract document pain as a validated niche.

Commercial value

Small subcontractors routinely lose £5k–£200k in disputed interim payments because they miss the 5-day pay-less notice window or fail to issue a valid payment application. QS and construction solicitor fees of £800–£3,500 per notice cycle are the direct budget line item replaced. ~300,000 SME construction firms in the UK; even 0.1% adoption at £149/month = £5.4M ARR. High urgency because a missed deadline is immediately and irreversibly costly.

Go-to-market

Cold DM to 200 subcontractors on LinkedIn and r/Construction who post about unpaid invoices. Hook: 'Issue a legally valid payment notice in 20 minutes for £149 — miss the window and you waive the debt.' Price at £149 per notice or £299/month unlimited. First 10 customers via construction Facebook groups and FMB member forums.

2-week MVP

Single workflow: user pastes their contract sum, application date, and disputed amount into a form; LLM generates a valid Section 110A payment application notice in the correct statutory format with all required particulars. Cut: adjudication referral, NEC compensation events, multi-party contracts. Manual QS review of first 20 outputs before automating. Day-1 outcome: a legally valid payment notice document the customer can send today, replacing a £400 QS call.

Agent score

0.63 — Commercial: clear £800–£3,500 budget line replaced, high urgency (missed deadlines are irreversible), large addressable base of SME subcontractors — scores 0.82. Speed: form + LLM output is a 1-week build; first 10 customers reachable via LinkedIn/Reddit without paid ads — scores 0.85. Defensibility: low moat initially; a contract-specific template library and adjudication outcome data would compound over time but don't exist at MVP — honest 0.42.

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Solve Studio is an independent AI automation and product studio founded by James Pates, working out of Brighton and London with clients across the UK. Get in touch at james@solve-studio.co.