NOTE Nº 0614 · REV A

Section 75: Paying Your Builder by Credit Card

How Section 75 protects building work paid by credit card: the £100–£30,000 rules, why part-payment covers the whole job, and claiming from the card company.

By The Renovation Notes Team · 3 min read · Published 23 August 2026

Side view of a construction excavator parked near a Swiss chalet, showcasing modern building equipment.

In short

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act makes your credit card company jointly liable for a builder's breach of contract on jobs costing £100–£30,000, and paying even a small part of the price by card is enough to cover the whole contract. It's the single cheapest protection in home improvement: a £100 deposit on the right card can put a bank behind a £25,000 job when the builder disappears or botches it.

One legal section turns your credit card into free insurance for building work, and most homeowners have never used it deliberately. Understand the rules once and “can I put £100 of the deposit on my Visa?” becomes a standard line in every project you run.

What Section 75 does

Under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974, when you buy goods or services partly or wholly on a credit card, the card issuer is jointly and severally liable with the trader for any breach of contract or misrepresentation, as long as the item’s cash price is over £100 and not more than £30,000. Jointly liable means you can claim against the bank instead of the builder: for defective work, for an abandoned job, for a deposit that vanished into a dissolved company. The bank stands in the builder’s shoes, and unlike the builder, the bank is always solvent and always answers letters.

The part-payment magic

The liability attaches to the contract, not the amount you put on the card. Pay £100 of a £20,000 extension by credit card and the issuer is on the hook for breaches of the whole £20,000 contract (because the cash price sits within the £100–£30,000 window). This is why the deposit, or any early stage payment, is the strategic moment to use the card, even if you pay the card off the same day and pay everything else by transfer. Interest never enters into it.

The rules that trip people up

Credit card, not debit card. Debit cards get chargeback instead, a scheme (not a law) that reverses payments for non-delivery or breach, typically claimed within 120 days. Useful, weaker, no £30,000 reach.
£100–£30,000 is the contract price. Projects over £30,000 fall outside Section 75 entirely, one argument for contracting big projects in genuinely separate agreements per phase where that reflects reality (a kitchen supply contract separate from the building contract, say). Artificial splitting of one deal, though, invites the bank to push back.
Pay the builder directly. The classic break in the chain is paying through an intermediary or a different legal entity than the one you contracted with. The card payment should go to the party named on your contract.
Person-to-person transfers don’t count. Bank transfer is the least protected way to pay a builder; it’s also how most builders are paid. Balance convenience against exposure at the points that matter, deposits and materials-heavy stages.

Making a claim

Write to your card issuer (most have online Section 75 forms): the contract and its price, the card payment evidencing Section 75 applies, the breach (with your evidence file, photos, expert report, remedial quotes), and the sum claimed. The bank investigates and pays valid claims; refusals escalate free of charge to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which regularly upholds building-work claims banks initially declined. There’s no requirement to sue the builder first, the whole point is a solvent alternative when the builder isn’t worth suing.

Where it fits in your protection stack

Section 75 doesn’t replace the fundamentals, vetting, a written contract, payments in arrears, a retention, it backstops them for the failure modes they can’t reach: insolvency, disappearance, and the rogue outfit that was never going to honour anything. £100 on the card at the start of every job is the cheapest hedge in this entire series.

This guide is general information for homeowners in England and Wales, not legal advice.