Terms and conditions for a scaffolding company

A scaffolding business is paid for two different things: erecting and dismantling, and the hire while the scaffold stands. Most terms I am shown deal with the first and say almost nothing about the second, which is where the money quietly disappears. I draft customer terms around how your business actually works, for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Scaffolding contractors in England and Wales, from a couple of crews to a yard full of system scaffold. Your customers are usually main contractors, roofers, builders and developers, but you will also deal directly with homeowners on a re-roof, a chimney or a render. The law treats those two groups very differently, so one set of terms has to be written with both in mind.

What matters in scaffolding terms

Hire period, standing time and off-hire

Your quote should separate the erect and dismantle charge from the hire, state the hire period included in the price, and set the rate for time beyond it. The clause that earns its keep is off-hire: the scaffold stays on hire until the customer gives written notice that it is no longer needed and you have been able to recover it, not from the day the roofer happened to finish. Without that wording you will be told the job ended weeks before anyone rang you. Extended hire should be invoiced as it accrues, not saved up for the end.

Main contractors, payment notices and adjudication

Scaffolding for a main contractor is a construction contract between businesses, so the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 applies. It implies a right to adjudication, staged payment rules for contracts of 45 days or more and payment notice requirements, and it bans pay-when-paid, so a contractor who says the employer has not paid him has no answer. Your terms need a payment mechanism that fits that regime rather than fights it, a proper treatment of contra-charges and deductions, and interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998.

Homeowners paying you directly

A scaffold priced above the £42 floor and agreed at the customer's house, or by phone and email, falls within the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, and the homeowner has fourteen days to cancel. You may erect within that period only at their express request, and a customer who then cancels pays a proportionate amount for what has been done, while one who made no express request pays nothing. The right to cancel is lost only where the service is fully performed inside the period following an express request and an acknowledgement. Missing cancellation information extends the period by up to twelve months.

Your scaffold in other people's hands

The scaffold never becomes the customer's property, and the terms should say so and then follow it through: the customer carries the risk of loss, theft and damage from handover until you recover the equipment, and should insure on that basis. Just as important is a clause prohibiting anyone from altering, extending, re-boarding, sheeting or overloading the scaffold, with an obligation to stop using it and tell you if it has been interfered with or struck. Boards and ties go missing on live sites. Your handover paperwork and your terms need to say the same thing.

Permissions, access and tie-ins

Say who obtains and pays for any permission needed to stand scaffold on a pavement or road, who bears the cost if it is refused, delayed or expires because the job overran, and what that does to your programme and price. The terms should place responsibility on the customer for safe and clear access, for confirming that the ground and the structure will take the loads, for drains and covers beneath base plates, and for neighbour consent where you must overhang or tie into an adjoining building. Making good ties, render and rainwater goods is extra work, priced as such.

Liability, delay claims and the weather

The claim that hurts is rarely the cracked render. It is the main contractor saying your late erect held up the follow-on trades. Your terms should exclude loss of profit and other consequential losses, cap liability at a figure your insurance actually supports, and make completion and dismantle dates estimates affected by weather, high winds and access. Against business customers on your written standard terms those limits are judged by the reasonableness test under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, so they must be defensible rather than absolute. Liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence cannot be excluded at all.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

The scaffold has stood for months and the customer will not pay the extra hire. Where do I stand?

It turns on whether your terms fix a hire period, a rate for time beyond it and a written off-hire procedure. With those in place the extended hire is a contractual debt and, from a business customer, carries interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Without them you are arguing about what was implied.

A main contractor wants me to sign his subcontract instead of using my terms. Should I?

Read it properly first, because that is the document which will govern the job and displace yours. The clauses that decide whether you make money are the payment mechanism, contra-charges, delay damages and who carries the scaffold while it stands. I look at subcontracts under my contract review service and tell you what to push back on.

Another trade altered my scaffold and there was an accident. Do my terms protect me?

Terms cannot displace duties you owe on site, and liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence cannot be excluded. What well drafted terms do is record that the scaffold was handed over in a defined condition, that alteration by others was prohibited, and that the customer had to report any change. That evidence matters when responsibility is being apportioned.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Contract review, £495
• Ask Caesar, £495 a month
• Terms and conditions for a roofing business
• Terms and conditions for a builder doing commercial work

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.