Not paid for a job in British Columbia. What are my options?

The order to work through, starting today

Four things sit between you and the money, and they run in a fixed order: the demand that makes the amount undeniable, the venue that decides it, the security that attaches to the land, and the clock that ends all three. The clock is the one people lose on. Start it today, not after the next phone call.

In British Columbia the route looks like this:

1. Put the amount, the work it covers and a payment date into one written demand, sent so you can prove it arrived.
2. If that date passes, file the claim for the debt with the Civil Resolution Tribunal or the Provincial Court, depending on the amount.
3. If the work improved land, get advice about a claim of lien while you are still inside the window the Builders Lien Act sets.
4. Check the limitation clock before anything else, because it is shorter than most people assume and it cannot be argued with afterwards.
5. Write off what costs more to chase than it returns, keep the file, and never work for that client again without a deposit.

Step 1: One written demand, with a date on it

A demand is not a reminder. It states the work agreed, the work delivered, the amount outstanding, the date payment is due, and the single next step you will take if that date passes. Send it by email, keep the sent copy, and add tracked mail if the amount matters to your business.

There is a second reason to put it in writing here. Under the Limitation Act, if the other side acknowledges liability for the claim in a signed writing made to you or your agent, before the period has run out, the claim is treated as discovered no earlier than the day of that acknowledgement. A part payment of a fixed sum is itself an acknowledgement, and the Act says this applies even where the person refuses to promise to pay the rest.

So the reply worth having is not an apology. It is a line that names the amount. Keep it, with its date, whatever happens next.

Step 2: The tribunal or the court

A claim for the debt goes to one of two places. The Civil Resolution Tribunal decides smaller claims in a written process built for people without lawyers. Larger claims go to the small claims side of the Provincial Court. The dividing amount and the upper limit are set by the province and published on one government page, which is the only copy worth reading, because these figures move.

A tribunal decision is not a letter. A validated CRT order can be filed with the Provincial Court of British Columbia, and once filed it has the same force and effect as an order of that court.

Neither venue collects the money for you. Both give you a decision you can then act on, which is why the evidence you gather in the first week decides what happens months later.

Step 3: A claim of lien, only if the work was on land

A claim of lien is filed at the land title office against the land the work improved. It is security, not a collection service. The Builders Lien Act prescribes the form and sets the window, counts that window from a defined event such as a certificate of completion or the completion, abandonment or termination of the contract, and says that a lien for which no claim is filed in the manner and within the time the Act provides is extinguished. There is no repairing that afterwards.

Two more things the Act is blunt about. A claim of lien is pursued by an action under the Supreme Court Civil Rules, and a certificate of pending litigation has to be registered within the time the Act allows or the filing stops protecting you. And anyone who files a lien against an interest in land that the lien does not attach to is liable for the owner's costs and damages. The Act also bars a claim below a minimum amount.

This is the step to take to a construction lawyer rather than work out from a web page, including this one. The window is short and the form is prescribed, and both are cheaper to get right the first time than to fix.

The clock, which is the part people lose on

The Limitation Act sets a basic period that starts when the claim is discovered, meaning the first day you knew or reasonably ought to have known the facts behind it, plus a longer outer period that runs whatever you knew. A claim of lien has its own, much shorter window under its own Act. They are not the same deadline and meeting one says nothing about the other.

Two practical consequences. Once the period has run out, the Act also takes away the remedies you could otherwise have used without going to court, so holding onto a client's equipment until they pay stops being available too. And the periods count from events, not from your invoice, so write down today when the work ended and when you were last paid, while you still remember.

Look up the current figures on the official pages below before you rely on any number, including one you were given at the supply counter.

What one BC decision shows about evidence

Ferguson v. Hyland, decided by the Civil Resolution Tribunal in June 2024, is a bathroom renovation that ended in a written hearing. The contractor quoted a figure, took a deposit, was fired partway through, invoiced the balance and claimed it when nothing arrived. The homeowner answered that the job was unfinished and the work deficient. The tribunal member awarded a little over half of the amount claimed, plus interest and half of the tribunal fees.

Three things in the reasons are worth more to you than the outcome. The document the parties had was headed ESTIMATE and said it was subject to change, and the changes that followed were agreed out loud, so the tribunal had to fix the deduction for unfinished items on a judgment basis, using the gap between the quote and the invoice. Neither side produced the invoice itself. And the homeowner's photographs of the defects were dated weeks before the job ended, so they proved nothing about its state at the end.

The reasons also record two general positions the tribunal applied, each with a citation to a BC court decision: a contractor is entitled to full payment when the work they were hired for is substantially complete, and a customer alleging deficiencies carries the burden of proving them and is presumed to owe the contractor a reasonable opportunity to fix them. That is one tribunal applying law to one set of facts, not a rule to plan a job around. The decision is linked below and it is short.

Prompt payment is law in British Columbia and not yet in force

The Construction Prompt Payment Act received Royal Assent in November 2025 and is not in force. The province is still developing regulations and selecting an adjudication authority, and its official status page is the place to watch for the date.

Until then, nothing in that Act helps you get paid, and any advice assuming British Columbia already has payment deadlines and adjudication for construction is wrong for today. Work the demand, the venue and the lien window instead.

The three gaps you cannot close after the job

A scope that was never written down. Changes that were agreed out loud while the work went on. A client whose identity you never checked. Each one turns a payment dispute into your word against theirs, and the first two are exactly what cost the contractor in the decision above.

None of them are repaired by a better demand letter. They are decided before the first hour of work, by whether there is a record both sides signed.

What TrustChain does about that, before the dispute

TrustChain keeps one final text that both parties sign, a timestamped audit trail of each signature, and an optional anchor that writes a fingerprint of the signed record to a dated Polygon transaction TrustChain does not control. Once both sign, neither side can edit the text in the app, and if the record is anchored, a later change would no longer match the fingerprint on Polygon. Tamper-evident means a later change would show up as a mismatch, not that a change is impossible.

Both parties verify identity with a photo ID and a selfie through Sumsub before signing, and an unverified account can't sign. The public link opens without an account once both parties have signed and shows the record's status and, if it was anchored, its fingerprint, never the parties' identities.

TrustChain does not chase the money and makes no claim about whether an agreement holds up where you are. What it gives you is a record of the deal that is hard to dispute, plus your own copy, certificate and PDF on every plan. The free plan covers 1 agreement a month, no card needed.

Where this page stops

This is general information for contractors and trades working in British Columbia, not legal advice, and it names no deadline, limit or section number on purpose. Those live in the statutes and on the government pages below, they change, and those copies are the only ones worth quoting. TrustChain's AI Advisor answers from the actual text of the Builders Lien Act and cites the section and the consolidation date; on everything else it gives general orientation and says so.

If the amount matters to your business, one paid hour with a British Columbia construction lawyer, booked before a lien window closes, is the cheapest step on this page.