The Contract Coach

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The Contract Coach

The Contract Coach® is available to business leaders and boards who happen can be mitigated and avoided in many cases. And one thing is for sure. Its heartache.

Specialist contractors are disrespected by main contractors & employers due to jargon filled contracts that don’t protect them. I help them get treated (and paid) with the respect they deserve through proactive contract coaching and reactive dispute resolution.

🤔 How much money have you written off in the last year just to avoid disputes?
🤔 Putting up with late payments. Being held hostage with

patronizing monthly payments – saying “this is just the way it is”? Running a profitable business doesn’t mean conforming to the terms and whims of main contractors. And those who do, don’t stay standing for very long because it only takes 1-2 late payments to face insolvency. I know because…
📝 I saw my dad’s construction company go through insolvency due to a lack of contractual boundaries
🛠️ I have three decades of experience as a board level contractor & dispute resolution specialist
🤓 I have an expert knowledge of commercial contract law and negotiation strategy. If it’s not on your terms, it’s not profit. So I help you define your own terms and protect your profits by:

1️⃣ Negotiating contracts that actually protect your business from day 1
2️⃣ Resolving disputes that keep you up at night
3️⃣ Stamp out arising disputes with records to prove your entitlement to claims

I do that in two ways:
✅ Proactive contract coaching – De-risk existing contracts, future-proof new contracts, integrate your new standards into your daily practice
✅ Reactive dispute resolution – including formal adjudications or arbitration or an informal negotiation or mediation. So you can get paid in full and on time, increase your profitability and gain respect for your terms. DM me to start a conversation. "We were able to rapidly turn a high-risk situation with a principal contractor into a significant commercial opportunity due to Yosof’s expert knowledge and depth of experience”
- Pete Marchant, Regional Manager, Barhale plc

“Yosof’s interest in resolving the dispute with fairness and least amount of disruption was clear from day one. In the first and only meeting with the Responding Party, Yosof chaired the meeting with complete confidence. Every detail was meticulously filed and he was ready to answer any query the Responding Party had. He successfully settled the account shortly after this meeting” - Peter Murphy, Managing Director, Murform Ltd.

26/04/2025

Another contractor paid. Another main contractor backed down.

This week, we settled a case where the main contractor conceded defeat and paid over 80% of the debt claimed—just to avoid the adjudication decision.

No hearing. No delay.

Just pressure applied in the right way—at the right time.

That’s the power of adjudication when you know how to use it.

Too many specialist contractors are walking away from money that’s rightfully theirs because they think it’s “too hard” or “not worth it.”

Let me be clear:
→ If you’ve done the work
→ If you’re chasing payment
→ If you’ve been ignored, delayed, or bullied into silence

You have options.

And you don’t need to wait for a decision to win.

We help you:
→ Understand your position
→ File quickly and correctly
→ Apply pressure where it matters most

And most importantly?
We help you get paid—fast.

If you're in this position right now, don’t wait.

The longer you delay, the harder it gets.

DM me or comment ‘specialist’ and I’ll message you with a link to book in a call.

You’re not a subcontractor.
You’re a specialist.

Let’s get you what you’re owed.

—

I create content on fairness in construction, dispute resolution and how specialist contractors can protect themselves and get paid.

I post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

If that sounds useful to you — follow me and hit the bell 🔔 so you don’t miss a post.

08/04/2025

I moved home last week with my love and our kids

A very happy new beginning

And then out of nowhere, it hit me late last night how my mum, Jane won’t ever set foot in here and grief overwhelmed me, but it also got me thinking about the nature of grief ✨🙏🏽

You’ll never be the same.
You won’t get over it
but in time,
you learn to live with it.

I’ve lost people who meant the world to me.
And each loss left its mark.

But let me ask you something
and I hope you’ll allow me to be bold:

What if the person you’re losing… is someone you don’t yet love?
What if the distance you feel
is because you never truly learned to love them?

Now think carefully 💭

What if you are that person?
What if the one you’re losing is yourself?

Love yourself.
Not someday.
Not eventually.
Now.

They say grief is the price of love
But how can you pay that price fully,
if you’ve never learned to truly love yourself first?

I hope that makes sense, as it did in my head ♥️✨🙏🏽

📸 one of my favourite photos of me scratching my mums back, she used to love that 💙♾️

04/04/2025

Every week I speak to contractors who’ve delivered what was asked and are now chasing what was promised.

Instead of thanks, they get delay.
Instead of payment, they get spin.
Instead of resolution, they get misdirection.

When people with resources pretend to be powerless…
When those who hold the cards claim to be the ones being wronged…
When truth becomes optional, someone has to stand up.

Because behind every unpaid invoice is a person. A business. A family.
And sometimes, the pressure of chasing what you’re due becomes too much.

One client collapsed on site last week from the sheer stress of trying to keep their business afloat while others played games with the truth. Paramedics had to be called.

This is the real impact of sophistry.
It’s not clever. It’s not strategy.
It’s harm, dressed up as process.

And behind every act of sophistry is someone hoping no one checks the facts.

Well, we do.

📸 she knew what she was doing 😂

31/03/2025

Last week I spoke about “sophistry” (in simple terms - lying cleverly to deceive) and today I want to tell you how it impacts people in the real world, in real time

Over the weekend I have been working on a Reply to the Response in an ongoing adjudication for a small civils contractor

I tried to contact my client to discuss the case, who was out working, but couldn’t reach him so spoke with his mother, who does his accounts

She told me how he had collapsed on site and his guys had to call 999 to get paramedics on scene to check him over with an ECG

Meanwhile within the Response there are numerous attacks against this man and his business that are unnecessary and are completely untrue - just to get out of paying for the works he has completed

They had already told him he would be paid before Christmas and reneged on that promise and now seek to defraud him out of the money he is rightfully due

Now my client is out working around the clock to keep his business afloat and pay off the suppliers he owes for the materials and plant for the works these people won’t pay him for

He has literally run himself into the ground because of the dishonesty of this company and it has broken him and caused misery for his wife and children

I’ve seen the evidence and know that this guy and his business worked around the clock to deliver the works for this developer, in all weathers, who now will lie and use sophistry to try and fool the adjudicator into believing their BS

My client and people like him really deserve much better than this and it’s real stories like this that drive me to change this industry and protect the heroes who stand up to the bullies

As for the Responding Party - karma is coming for you!!

📸 karma at work.

29/03/2025

The Million-Dollar Question Main Contractors Never Want to Answer

We’ve just spent a week exposing the manipulative language - the sophistry - used to confuse, deflect, and gaslight specialist contractors into silence.

But this isn’t just a language problem. It’s a money problem.

A trust problem.

A systemic crisis.

Let me show you what I mean…

Since Carillion collapsed with a 23% debt-to-turnover ratio, we’ve seen a wave of failures that are much, much worse.

Companies running up massive debts, not paying their supply chain, and somehow still maintaining the image of stability.

Take a look:

🔹 ISG (2024) – £1.1bn debt / £2.2bn turnover = 50%
🔹 Stewart Milne Group (2024) – £153m debt / £172.4m turnover = 89%
🔹 Dawnus (2019) – £98m debt / £59m turnover = 166%

Average debts of the 9 major collapses since Carillion? 70%

Hardly a stable business model now is it?

And yet, time and again, these companies gaslight the industry, telling specialist contractors everything is fine, contracts are fair, payments are on time… right up until they fold and leave millions in unpaid invoices behind.

So let me ask you:

If they’re not paying their supply chain… and they’re borrowing heavily… then where the hell is the money for the works completed going?

Surely not… to shareholders?

This is not just bad business. It’s strategic deception, dressed up in corporate PR.

It’s the smiling assassin shaking your hand with one arm, while the other’s already signed off your loss.

This is exactly why specialist contractors must push back.
Whether it’s at contract stage - or the moment payments start slipping - you have to act.
Because once these firms collapse, your money is gone.
And in too many tragic cases, so is your business… or worse.

And the result?
• Insolvencies
• Broken families
• Suicides in our trades

This is why we need real reform. Not more roundtables. Not more whitepapers.
Real protection for the supply chain. Real consequences for corporate misconduct.

Follow me for more content like this.

28/03/2025

Saved a belter for last!!

Sophistry………..Seven figures claimed. £5.5M Counterclaimed.

90 Days Later… I Buried the Bu****it

My client, a highly skilled and respected civils contractor had submitted a final account on a major infrastructure project.

My client was owed around £4 million.
I adjudicated on that basis.
The payer responded with a completely made-up £5.5 million counterclaim, along with a bucketload of false accusations.

This wasn’t your average case.
It was an attempt to screw my client out of their rightful payment, using sophistry*.

But I showed the adjudicator something the other side hadn’t factored on…because, I don’t pull my punches when faced with blatant fabrication…

🧨 They had already admitted liability for the root cause.

Buried in the evidence.
I blew the case wide open.

Their legal team tried everything to fight back, but it was too late!!

The results?

✅ Their £5.5M made up counterclaim? Obliterated.
✅ My client awarded around £3 million to be added to the £1.1 million we won for them in an earlier adjudication
✅ Adjudicator saw everything for what it was.

This adjudication took over 90 days, across many voluminous submissions and expert reports, plus multiple hearings - all handled expertly by yours truly!

It wasn’t a claim. It was a campaign.
And we won it with grit, relentless energy, truth, strategy, and precision.

If you’re a specialist contractor facing a big name with a big lie, don’t flinch.

Call me. I’ve been in the fight.

I know how to Adjudicate, but I also know how to avoid, with our programmes The Contract Coach® and Contract Sentry®

Follow or DM for more information ℹ️

Have a lovely weekend 😉

📸 this image was taken the day after the first decision came back, felt appropriate to post it ♥️🙏🏽

* sophistry means "The use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention to deceive".

27/03/2025

One Lie. Three Adjudications. Zero Success for the Paying Party.

Day 4 in my “Sophistry” Series*

The paying party falsely accused my client of negligence.

Total fabrication.
No evidence. Just a smear tactic. To try and scare my client out of their entitlement!!

We launched adjudication #1 to recover what was owed. We won.

They hit back with adjudication #2, claiming £130k+ in damages.

They lost that one too. I was relentless.

Then I said:

“Let’s go after them - for their negligence.”

We launched adjudication #3.

We won. Again.

✅ The original payment
✅ The false claim extinguished
✅ A damages award against the payer

Three adjudications.
Three victories.
One dishonest strategy demolished.

Sophistry only works when no one fights back.

I fight back.

📸 you can’t beat a bit of with your friends to take your mind off of .

* sophistry means "The use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention to deceive".

25/03/2025

Certified PC… Then Denied the Job Was Finished……

Sophistry in construction Day 2……
"The use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention to deceive".

The Employer issued a Certificate of Practical Completion to my client

Then, when it came time to pay, they pulled a 180:

“The works weren’t complete.” 🤦🏽‍♂️

Read that again.
They certified the works as complete.
Then claimed they weren’t.

That’s not confusion. That’s deliberate deception.

And it didn’t stop there.

Their representative threw four separate jurisdictional challenges into the adjudication………trying to force the adjudicator to resign.

Why?

Because if they couldn’t win on facts, they’d try to win by derailing the process.

Didn’t work.The adjudicator saw through it all and agreed with our rebuttals of all challenges and all arguments 🏆

✅ Full award.
✅ Significant interest.
✅ 100% of the adjudicator’s costs.

No sympathy.
No excuses.
Just the truth.

They lied. They lost. My client got paid.

Too many contractors wait until it’s too late to get professional advice around resolving their dispute and getting them paid!! Don’t delay as these days far too many big companies are folding.

📸 Daylight savings change this Sunday!! Do you remember how it works? Spring - forward, fall - back!!

24/03/2025

Do you know what sophistry is? I am literally a word geek!!

“Sophistry” – noun.

"The use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention to deceive".

It’s the polished way some main contractors and their solicitors / representatives lie through their teeth - oh yes, I am no longer playing around here!!

They twist the truth (that's as polite as it gets), wrap it in legalese, and expect no one to notice.

They call it robust defence 🙄
Commercial positioning 🙄

“A strong representation of our client’s position.”

Let’s call it what it is.

Bu****it.

Words that are often used to sugar-coat it:

Misleading. Disingenuous. Untruthful. Sophistry....

But sometimes, I just want to say:

👉🏽 “Hey Mr / Mrs Adjudicator – he’s f*cking lying.”

And you know what?

Would it be so wrong to say that - if you knew how to prove it?

That’s where I come in.

I’m here to drag the lies into the light.

To show adjudicators the facts.

To fight for the specialist contractors who get shafted by people playing games with their livelihoods.

Over the next few days, I’ll show you four real-life examples of sophistry in construction.

How it looks. How it operates. And how we shut it down.

In the real world, because I am much more than a coach!!

📌 Tuesday: They Certified Practical Completion.......Then Said the Job Wasn’t Finished.
📌 Wednesday: The Signed Contract That Never Existed.
📌 Thursday: One False Accusation. Three Adjudications. Justice Every Time.
📌 Friday: Seven figures Claimed. Seven Figure Made Up Counterclaim. 90 Days Later… We Buried the Bu****it.

This isn’t theory.

It’s war stories.

It’s receipts.

And it’s time we started calling a spade a fu***ng spade.

Have a great Monday and please if you are not already, hit the follow 🔔 on my profile to keep up to date with this series and all future content, things are hotting up for sure 😉

22/03/2025

I read this earlier and wanted to share it with you, hope you like it ♥️✨

The good old days are happening right now.

Every single thing you do today is something that your 90-year-old self will wish they could go back and do

Read that again

Have a blessed weekend 🙏🏽✨💙

19/03/2025

Thought for today 💭

Remember when we used to have wait until 9pm to talk to our friends or family for unlimited minutes? ☎️

Here we are now, 20 years later, we all pay for unlimited minutes and don't call anyone….📱

Reach out and talk to someone today ✨

Connection is everything ♥️

📸 connecting with my love and nature at the top of Schiehallion ⛰️

Address

2 Park Place
Kirkcaldy
KY11XL

Website

http://www.thecontractcoach.co.uk/

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