No UK law sets a maximum deposit for trade work. What protects you is what you do before paying: get the scope and total price in writing, look the business up on the free Companies House register, and pay on a credit card where the job’s cash price is more than £100 so section 75 applies.
Is there a legal limit on a deposit?
No. There is no statutory cap on what a builder, roofer or fitter may ask for up front, and no rule that says a deposit must be a particular fraction of the price. Anyone telling you a specific percentage is "the legal maximum" is mistaken.
What the law does control is the information you must be given before you are bound, and whether you can change your mind. Under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 an off-premises contract — one agreed in your home — must come with the total price inclusive of taxes, the arrangements for payment, and written notice of your cancellation right, all on paper or another durable medium.
So the useful question is not "is this deposit too big?" but "what am I holding in writing before I send it?"
What should be in writing first?
Everything a dispute would later turn on:
- The scope. What is being done, to what specification, and what is excluded.
- The total price, inclusive of VAT, or the stated basis on which it will be calculated.
- The payment stages — what is due when, and what each stage buys.
- The start and completion dates, or a stated basis for them.
- What the deposit is for. Materials ordered to your specification is a reason. "To secure the booking" is not really a reason, and where it is the reason, ask what happens to it if the work never starts.
- The trader’s full identity and geographical address, and the address for complaints.
- Any guarantee, its length, and — the question that separates a real guarantee from a leaflet — who stands behind it.
What can Companies House tell you?
More than most people expect, for free, in about two minutes. Search the register and you can see:
- When the company was incorporated. A company registered last month trading on a decade of claimed experience is not necessarily a problem, but it is a question.
- The registered office, which you can compare with the address you were given.
- Who the officers are, and what other companies they have been involved in.
- Whether accounts and confirmation statements have been filed, and whether they are overdue.
- Whether the company is in liquidation, or subject to a proposal to strike it off. This is the single most valuable field on the page. A striking-off notice against a company asking you for a deposit is a stop sign.
Two caveats. A sole trader will not appear on the register at all, because sole traders are not registered companies — that is normal, not a warning. And a company existing tells you it exists; it does not tell you the work will be good.
If the trading name on the quote differs from the company name, ask which legal entity you are contracting with, and make sure the invoice and the bank details match it.
What happens to the deposit if the trader goes bust?
If they simply cease trading owing you money, you are an unsecured creditor, and unsecured creditors in an insolvency usually recover little or nothing. This is precisely why how you paid matters more than how much you paid.
- Credit card. Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 makes the card provider jointly and severally liable with the trader where the item’s cash price is more than £100 and not more than £30,000 — and the threshold is the cash price of the job, not the amount you put on the card. A deposit on a credit card can bring the whole job within protection.
- Bank transfer. No equivalent protection. Once it is gone, it is gone.
- Insurance-backed guarantee. A guarantee given by the trader is only as good as the trader. An insurance-backed guarantee is underwritten by an insurer, so it survives the trader’s failure. If a guarantee is offered, ask specifically whether it is insurance-backed, ask who the insurer is, and ask for the policy document rather than the marketing sheet.
- Scheme protection. Some schemes carry their own financial protection. In removals, the British Association of Removers operates an Advance Payment Guarantee: all BAR members must provide it, and it is designed to protect a customer who has paid in advance and cannot recover the money because the member company has failed. Read the conditions rather than the headline — the scheme’s own terms make clear that it is triggered by formal liquidation, so a member that has merely stopped trading or entered administration may not trigger it.
Can you get a deposit back if you change your mind?
Often, yes, if you move quickly. Work agreed in your home is normally an off-premises contract carrying a 14-day right to cancel under Part 3 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, with no reason required, and that period runs far longer if the trader never gave you written cancellation information.
There is an important interaction with deposits. The trader must not begin supplying a service before the cancellation period ends unless you made an express request, which for an off-premises contract must be in writing. Where you did, and then cancel, you pay a proportionate amount for what was supplied. Where there was no express written request, or the trader never gave you the cancellation information, you bear no cost — which includes work done and, in principle, the money taken for it.
Our guide to the 14-day right to cancel sets this out in full, including the exclusions for urgent repairs and for goods made to your specification.
A short pre-payment checklist
- Written scope, total price including VAT, and payment stages, in an email you keep.
- Companies House checked, including the insolvency and strike-off status.
- Trading name and bank details matching the legal entity on the quote.
- Public liability insurance certificate seen, with dates and insured name.
- Whichever registration applies to the trade checked on the relevant register.
- Deposit on a credit card where the job’s cash price is more than £100.
- Written cancellation information received, and read.
- Any guarantee confirmed as insurance-backed, with the insurer named.
What to do next
Do the Companies House search before you send anything — it is free and it is the check most people skip. Then decide how you pay, because that decision is worth more than any promise in the quote.
Our guide to checking a UK trader is registered sets out what exists trade by trade, and every category page on this directory states what the law requires of that trade and how to verify it before you make contact.