Not Paid on a Construction Job in Ontario? What to Do, in Order

You’re not the bank — even if they treat you like one

I’ve been building in Ontario since 1979. In that time I’ve been the guy owed money, and — I’ll admit it — once or twice the guy explaining why the money was late. So I know both speeches by heart.

Here’s what late money actually does to a trade business. Payroll still goes out Friday. The truck and machine payments come out of the account whether the GC paid on Tuesday or not. The supplier wants his money on 30 days. So the line of credit fills up, the credit card comes out, and sooner or later the bank calls to “review” your line. Some good outfits end up selling equipment to cover jobs they finished months ago. Construction had 742 insolvencies in Canada in 2025 — more than any other industry — and plenty of them weren’t badly run. They just didn’t get paid.

The good news: Ontario’s Construction Act gives a trade more tools than most people know about, and several of them cost nothing. This page walks through them in the order I’d use them.

Step 1 — Check your clock before you do anything else

Answer these five questions before you send another polite email:

• When was your last day of real work? Not the day you came back to fix a deficiency, and not the day you picked up your tools. The last day you actually supplied work or materials under the contract. Write it down — several deadlines run from it.
• When was the contract signed? Contracts from before July 1, 2018 still run on the old, shorter rules.
• Whose land is it? Private land, municipal or provincial (roads, schools, hospitals), or federal. Each one works differently.
• Has a certificate of substantial performance been published? If it has, it may have started your clock already, even if you never saw it.
• How much are you owed? The amount decides which routes are worth paying for.

Step 2 — Work out who owes you, and who’s above them

Money in construction runs downhill: the owner pays the general contractor, the GC pays the subs, the subs pay their own subs and suppliers. Where you sit on that hill decides who you can chase, who gets your notices, and whose land a lien goes on.

If your paperwork names three companies and you’re not sure which one hired you, sort that out first. Middlemen who hold no money are common. Three cheap tools help: the Ontario Business Registry profile for $8 (directors and status), the OnLand parcel register for $36.50 (who actually owns the land), and a section 39 request — a written question the owner and GC have to answer within 21 days, and it costs nothing to send.

Step 3 — The excuse you were given, decoded

I’ve heard every one of these. Some of them I’ve said. Here’s what the law actually says about each, in one line, and where to read the full answer.

Step 4 — Build your file. This is where claims are won or lost.

Most payment fights aren’t about the law. They’re about paper. Put this together in one folder before you talk to anybody:

• The contract, quote or purchase order — whatever you agreed to, in whatever form.
• Written approval of every extra. A signed change order, or at least an email or text that says “go ahead” and names the work.
• Every invoice, with the date you sent it and how.
• Delivery slips and signed tickets, matched to the invoice they belong to.
• Dated photos of the work — before, during and after.
• Your daily log or diary, however rough.
• Texts and emails, exported with their dates.
• A record of every payment received.
• A one-page timeline: started, extras, invoices, payments, last day of real work, when they went quiet.

Step 5 — Pick the route by what ends up in your pocket

Every route costs something — money, time, or both. The right one is the one that nets you the most, not the one that sounds toughest.

Here’s the arithmetic in plain terms. On a $5,000 debt, spending $3,000 to register and perfect a lien is a bad trade. On $40,000 owed by a company with money in the bank, the same lien might be the best $3,000 you ever spend. And for the record: using your rights isn’t declaring war. A section 39 request or an adjudication is a routine business step. The Act built them so trades could use them without blowing up the relationship.

Your trade, your traps

HST on invoices you never got paid

You remit the HST when you invoice, not when you get paid. So a bad debt costs you twice: the work and the tax. GST/HST bad-debt relief lets you claim the tax back — but only if you write the debt off formally in your books and can show reasonable efforts to collect each debt. A 2026 Tax Court decision denied one firm more than $37,000 because the paperwork wasn’t kept debt by debt.

• A formal write-off entry for each bad debt.
• A record of every collection step — letters, emails, calls, dates.
• Confirmation that all the HST for those periods was remitted before you claim.
• Your accountant’s sign-off before you file.

Next time: get paid before you start

None of this is glamorous, and every bit of it is cheaper than a lawyer:

• A written price and scope, even a one-page quote they sign.
• A deposit that covers your materials.
• Payment terms shorter than the lien window — 60-day terms mean the deadline is half gone before you know there’s a problem.
• The $8 corporate profile and a court search on any GC you haven’t worked for before.
• The owner’s name, and whether there’s a payment bond, before you start.
• A change-order rule agreed in writing: no extra without a written OK and a price.
• Invoice monthly, and never save the changes for the final bill.
• Write down your last day of real work on every job.

Questions trades ask

Not legal advice. This is general information from an Ontario builder, current to October 2026. Your dates and rights depend on your contract and your facts — confirm them with an Ontario construction lawyer before you rely on them. Read the Construction Act on ontario.ca.

Getting paid: the full set of guides