ABSTRACT
The employer may attain the best commercial and technical result if he offers to the tenderers terms of payment which, while providing the employer with reasonable contractual safeguards, impose the minimum strain on the contractor's financial resources. The traditional method provides the means for automatically adjusting the amount due to the contractor for each month according to progress achieved in accordance with the contract programme without the need for any measurement and valuation. The higher cost to the contractor of retention moneys on many plant contracts lies in the 5 or 10 per cent retained during the defects liability period. There are four different bases by which in a contract for work and materials or for the sale of goods a party who is sued can seek to defend himself by showing that he has a claim against the other: common law right of set-off, equitable set-off, contractual set-off and abatement.
