# How to Handle a Dispute With a Tradesperson or Contractor (Nigeria, 2026)
Home and building work goes wrong in a very particular way. The contractor is paid a large deposit up
front because that is how the market works. Materials are bought, the job starts, and then it slows.
Then it stops. Then the calls get shorter. Somewhere in there you realise that most of your money has
gone and most of the work has not been done, and that you have almost nothing in writing.
This is not usually fraud. More often it is a contractor who took on too many jobs, spent your deposit
finishing someone else's, and is now juggling. The distinction matters, because a juggler can often be
recovered, redirected and finished. A disappeared contractor is a different problem with different
tools.
What follows is how to handle both, without doing the two things that destroy your position fastest:
paying more to unblock the work, and losing your temper before you have your evidence.
> **Your leverage in a contractor dispute is almost entirely the money you have not yet paid. Everything
> else — the shouting, the appeals, the threats — is weak by comparison, which is why how you stage
> payments at the start decides how the dispute ends.**
## Why these disputes go wrong
- **The scope was never written down.** Both sides remember a different job. Most "he did not do what we
agreed" disputes are really "we never agreed in writing".
- **Payment ran ahead of progress.** Once a contractor has been paid for more than they have delivered,
you have no lever and they have no urgency.
- **Materials money was mixed with labour money.** You paid a lump sum, the contractor bought materials
for a different site, and now the shortfall has to come from somewhere.
- **There was no milestone structure.** Without stage-linked payments, there is no natural moment to
inspect and no natural moment to stop.
- **Nobody agreed what "finished" means.** Snagging drags for months because the standard was never
defined.
- **Variations were verbal.** You asked for a change, they say it doubled the cost, and there is no
record of what was agreed or at what price.
These are all preventable at the start, which is why the prevention section of
(/how-to-budget-for-home-repairs-and-maintenance-nigeria/)
matters more than any dispute technique. But you are here because it has already happened.
## Stabilise the position first
Before any confrontation, protect what you have.
1. **Stop further payments.** Not as punishment, but because paying into a stalled job is how people lose
double. Any further money should be tied to specific, inspected completion of a specific stage.
2. **Secure the site and the materials.** Materials you paid for are yours. Photograph what is on site,
note quantities, and if the site is unsecured, secure it. Materials disappear quickly once a job goes
sour.
3. **Do not sack anyone yet.** Terminating before you have documented the state of the work and
understood your contract position can weaken your claim and leave you with an unfinished, uninspected
site.
4. **Get your paperwork in one place.** Quotes, the WhatsApp thread, transfer receipts, invoices,
drawings, the specification, any variation messages. Export the chat rather than relying on the app.
5. **Establish the payment picture in writing.** Total quoted, total paid, dates, and what each payment
was said to be for. Your bank statement is the spine of this; if you already
(/how-to-track-your-spending-nigeria/) properly, this takes an hour rather than a
weekend.
## Document the defects and the state of the work
This is the single most valuable hour you will spend on the dispute.
- **Photograph everything, systematically.** Room by room, wall by wall. Wide shot first for context,
then close-ups. Include something that gives scale. Do not delete anything.
- **Video the walkthrough with narration.** A single continuous video describing what you are looking at
is enormously persuasive later, and it fixes the date.
- **Write a numbered defect schedule.** One line per item: location, what is wrong, what you say should
have been done. Numbering matters — it lets every later conversation refer to item 14 rather than
re-arguing the whole job.
- **Separate defects from incompletions.** "Tiles laid unevenly" is a defect. "Tiles not laid" is an
incompletion. They are remedied differently and priced differently.
- **Separate defects from variations.** If you changed your mind mid-job, be honest about which items
those are. Mixing them in undermines the credibility of the whole schedule.
- **Get an independent professional opinion for anything structural, electrical or plumbing-related.** A
written assessment from a qualified third party converts your opinion into evidence, and it is the
only thing that reliably settles arguments about workmanship standards.
- **Price the remedy.** Get at least two written quotes from other contractors for putting the defects
right. This becomes the number you are negotiating about.
## Diagnose what you are actually dealing with
The right response depends entirely on which of these it is.
- **Cash-flow juggling.** The contractor is on site occasionally, responds to messages eventually, and
keeps promising next week. Recoverable, usually by restructuring the payment schedule around tight,
inspected milestones.
- **Competence gap.** The work is being done, but badly. Requires a defect schedule, an independent
assessment and a decision about whether to let them rectify or bring someone else in.
- **Scope disagreement.** They believe they have done what was agreed. Requires going back to whatever
documentation exists and negotiating rather than accusing.
- **Overcommitment and abandonment.** They have moved to another job and are not coming back. Requires
formal notice and a replacement contractor.
- **Outright dishonesty.** Money taken with no intention of completing, fake credentials, no traceable
identity. This is a different matter and needs early formal and possibly police involvement.
Be honest about which one you have. Treating a cash-flow juggler as a fraudster tends to make them
disappear entirely, taking your money with them.
## The conversation, done properly
- **Meet on site, not on the phone.** Stand in front of the work. Abstract arguments become concrete
ones.
- **Bring the numbered defect schedule and go through it item by item.** Ask for their position on each.
Write their answers next to the items.
- **Ask open questions first.** "What is the current position on the job?" tells you more than an
accusation, and often produces an admission you can rely on later.
- **Separate the two questions.** First: what will be done to put it right. Second: who pays. Trying to
settle both simultaneously produces deadlock.
- **Agree a written programme.** Dates for each stage, what is inspected at each stage, and what payment
releases on satisfactory inspection. Send it as a message afterwards and ask them to confirm.
- **Keep it civil and keep it recorded.** Follow every site meeting with a written summary the same day:
"Following our meeting today, we agreed items 1 to 6 will be rectified, and payment of the next stage
releases on inspection." Silence in response to a summary is still useful evidence.
The negotiating posture here is much the same one used in
(/how-to-negotiate-with-suppliers-nigeria/) — firm on the outcome, flexible
on the route, and always in writing.
## The escalation ladder
**Step 1 — the written defect notice.** A single message or letter attaching the numbered schedule,
stating what you require and asking them to confirm a rectification programme. Ask directly: "What is
your timeframe for rectifying these items?" Getting them to state it themselves is stronger than
imposing a date they never accepted.
**Step 2 — the reminder and the record.** If they miss their own stated programme, reply on the same
thread quoting it back. Do not restart the story or open a new channel.
**Step 3 — formal notice.** A letter stating the breach, the items outstanding, what you require, and
that you will otherwise engage another contractor and hold them responsible for the additional cost.
Send it in a way that proves delivery.
**Step 4 — the guarantor or introducer.** Many Nigerian contractors are engaged through an estate, an
association, a developer, an architect or a personal referral. That intermediary has reputational
leverage you do not, and using it early is often more effective than anything formal.
**Step 5 — trade body, association or regulator, where one applies.** Certain trades sit under
professional or regulatory oversight. Where the work involves consumer services more broadly, the Federal
Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) is Nigeria's general consumer-protection
authority and handles complaints about unfair treatment of consumers. Confirm the current complaint
process directly with the body itself through its official channels rather than relying on second-hand
instructions, and do not assume a particular remedy or outcome applies to your case — ask what the
process is.
**Step 6 — legal.** A letter of demand from a lawyer, or a small-claims route where the sum fits. Get a
cost estimate before you commit; (/how-to-choose-a-lawyer-and-budget-for-legal-fees-nigeria/)
explains how to have that conversation. For a modest sum, the legal route can cost more than it
recovers.
**Step 7 — police, only where there is genuine dishonesty.** Taking money with no intention to perform
is different from performing badly. Do not use criminal process as leverage in a civil dispute; it
rarely works and it can rebound.
## Money leverage and the retention idea
The reason contractor disputes are so hard in Nigeria is that the payment structure hands over leverage
early. Two fixes, both worth adopting on the next job even if it is too late for this one.
- **Stage payments against inspected milestones.** Payment follows completion of a defined stage, not a
calendar date and not a request. Each stage is inspected before the money moves.
- **A retention held to the end.** A portion of the contract price held back until the job is complete
and the snagging list is closed. It is the single most effective tool for getting the last ten per cent
of a job finished, which is the part contractors most reliably abandon.
Fund both from a dedicated pot rather than from your general account, so that the money exists when the
milestone is met. Setting up a (/sinking-funds-nigeria/) for the project keeps the staged
payments credible and stops you dipping into money that is already promised.
If the job was financed, tell the lender what is happening. And if the work relates to a property you are
still acquiring, the dispute may affect your completion position — see
(/how-to-buy-a-house-in-nigeria/) for where those two processes touch.
## When the contractor has disappeared
- **Send formal notice anyway,** to the last known address and every contact channel. You need to be able
to show you gave them the opportunity to return.
- **Establish who they actually are.** A business name, a registered company, a person. If they gave you
a company name, check whether it exists. This determines who you can pursue and is exactly why the
distinction in (/business-name-vs-limited-company-nigeria/) matters
when you engage anyone.
- **Bring in the replacement contractor properly.** Have them document the state of the work before they
touch anything, and get their quote for completion and rectification in writing. That documentation is
your claim.
- **Do not overstate the loss.** Your claim is the reasonable cost of putting things right, not the cost
of an upgraded specification.
- **Decide honestly whether to pursue.** If the person has no traceable assets and no fixed business,
a judgment may be unenforceable. Sometimes the right answer is to absorb the loss, finish the job and
change how you contract in future.
## Common mistakes to avoid
- **Paying more to unblock the work.** A contractor who has spent your money will spend the next payment
the same way. Money moves after inspected progress, never to restart it.
- **Sacking them before documenting the site.** Once they are off site and the replacement has started,
proving what was wrong becomes very hard. Photograph and video first.
- **Keeping the whole dispute verbal.** Site conversations evaporate. Every meeting needs a written
summary sent the same day.
- **Mixing variations into the defect list.** Including things you changed your mind about lets the
contractor attack the credibility of the entire schedule.
- **Arguing about workmanship without an independent opinion.** Your view against theirs goes nowhere.
A qualified third-party assessment settles it.
- **Threatening criminal consequences over a civil failure.** It escalates badly, often ends
communication, and rarely produces money.
- **Ignoring the person who introduced them.** Reputational leverage through an association, estate or
referrer frequently works faster than a formal letter.
- **Chasing a sum smaller than the cost of chasing it.** Price your own time and any legal fees honestly
before starting a fight over a modest amount.
## A quick scenario
Yemisi and Olumide each engaged a contractor who stalled halfway through a renovation. Yemisi stopped
further payments, spent an afternoon photographing and videoing the site, wrote a numbered defect and
incompletion schedule, got two independent quotes for putting it right, met the contractor on site to go
through the schedule item by item, asked him what timeframe he could commit to, sent a written summary
of what was agreed that evening, and released the next payment only after the agreed stage was inspected.
Olumide, faced with the same stall, transferred more money to keep the men on site, argued repeatedly by
phone, eventually sacked the contractor in anger, and only afterwards realised he had no photographs of
the state of the work, no written scope and no idea whether the man he had paid was trading as a
registered business at all. The jobs were comparable; the recovery positions were not.
## The bottom line
Stop paying, secure the materials and document the site before you confront anyone — photographs, a
narrated video, and a numbered schedule that keeps defects, incompletions and your own variations
strictly separate. Get an independent professional assessment for anything structural or technical, and
two written quotes for the remedy, because that is the number you will actually negotiate about. Meet on
site, go through the schedule item by item, ask the contractor what rectification timeframe he can
commit to rather than imposing one, and confirm everything in a written summary the same day. Escalate in
order: written defect notice, reminder on the same thread, formal notice, then the person or body that
introduced them. Consider the FCCPC or a relevant trade body next, confirming their current process with
them directly, and treat the legal route as a commercial decision priced against the sum at stake. Then
fix the structure that created the problem: stage payments against inspected milestones, and a retention
held until the snagging list is closed.
## Frequently asked questions
**Should I stop paying a contractor who has gone quiet?**
Yes, pause further payments and tie any future money to inspected completion of a defined stage. Paying
to restart a stalled job usually funds a different site and leaves you with even less leverage. Say so
in writing, calmly, so the position is on record rather than looking like a unilateral default.
**Can I bring in another contractor and charge the first one?**
That is the usual approach where the original contractor has been given formal notice and has failed to
return or rectify. Document the state of the work exhaustively before anyone new touches it, keep the
replacement's quotes and invoices, and claim the reasonable cost of putting things right rather than the
cost of an improved specification.
**Do I need an independent assessment?**
For anything structural, electrical or plumbing-related, yes. Workmanship arguments between a client and
a contractor go nowhere on opinion alone. A written report from a qualified third party is what converts
your complaint into evidence a lawyer, an association or a court can act on.
**What can the FCCPC do about a bad contractor?**
The FCCPC is Nigeria's consumer-protection authority and handles complaints about unfair or deceptive
treatment of consumers within its remit. What it can do in a specific case, and what its current
complaint procedure requires, should be confirmed with the commission directly through its own official
channels, as processes are updated over time.
**Is it worth going to court over building work?**
It depends entirely on the sum against the cost and time of pursuing it, and on whether the contractor
has traceable assets or a registered business to pursue. Get a realistic fee estimate first. For modest
amounts, negotiation, an intermediary's pressure or absorbing the loss and finishing the job may be the
rational choice.
**How do I stop this happening on the next job?**
Write the scope down before work starts, price it item by item, pay against inspected milestones rather
than dates or requests, record every variation in writing at an agreed price, and hold a retention until
snagging is closed. Verify who you are contracting with, and keep the whole relationship on one
documented channel.
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*This article is general information for Nigerian consumers and is not legal advice. Contract rights,
remedies and complaint procedures depend on your specific agreement, the facts of your project and the
rules in force. Confirm current processes with the relevant authority or professional body, and consult
a qualified lawyer about your own circumstances.*
