Renno is live in the UK

Today, Renno is live in the UK.

For homeowners, that means money that stays protected until you're happy with the work. For contractors, it means getting paid as the job gets done, not months after. For an industry that runs on trust and rarely rewards it, that's the change.

The problem isn't late payment. It's the order things happen in.

We asked 200 UK contractors over the last two months. 86% had already hit a dispute over money in 2026. And it almost never starts with a late payment.

It starts with a cost nobody saw coming and a scope that keeps growing. Then comes the row. Then the payment stalls. And in the end, the contractor funds the whole job out of their own pocket.

One contractor we spoke to was running a large renovation when his client went bust halfway through. He had already paid his team and bought the materials, so he took out a personal loan to cover the gap. That loan cost his family their first mortgage. He did everything right, and it still nearly broke him.

That is not a rare story. It is how the industry works when nothing holds the money and the scope in place.

It is no easier on the other side. In our own survey of UK homeowners, 65% went over budget and 60% saw the work run late. When money went wrong, it was the same story in reverse: a price that changed, a deposit that felt too large, work that stopped before it was finished. And the fear starts earlier than any of that, the moment you hand a large sum to someone you barely know with no clear idea of when, or whether, you will see the value back.

The cost of getting it wrong is real. The Federation of Master Builders found that 37% of UK adults have hired a builder who turned out to be unreliable or unqualified, and that homeowners have lost £14.3bn to rogue builders in the past five years.

This research lays bare the scale of damage caused by poor standards and a lack of accountability in the building industry, from botched jobs and lost savings to deepening public mistrust.

— Brian Berry, Chief Executive, Federation of Master Builders

What Renno changes

• The money is protected before work begins. The full project budget sits in the Renno Wallet, a regulated, protected account, from day one.
• The price, and any change to it, is agreed before the work happens. Both sides sign off on the plan, and on any change to it, before a tool comes out.
• The contractor gets paid the moment a stage is done. As each stage is approved, the Wallet releases the funds instantly.

One project, from agreement to payout

Here is how a single renovation actually runs on Renno.

Agree the plan. The contractor breaks the project into stages, each with its own scope, timeline, and cost, and shapes it together with the homeowner. Nothing is locked in until both sides are happy. The signed plan is what the project runs on.

Fund the Wallet. The homeowner moves the full budget into the Renno Wallet. The money sits in a segregated, FCA-regulated account, and stays there until each stage is approved. The contractor knows the budget is real and committed, and the homeowner controls every release.

Build and submit. The contractor does the work, with progress, photos, and costs going into the project as the stage runs. When a stage is finished, they submit it with the evidence already attached.

Approve and pay. The homeowner has seven days to review and sign off. The moment they do, the money lands in the contractor's account. If something is not right, Renno steps in with dispute resolution, and the money stays protected the whole way.

Plan, Submit, Approve, Paid. Set the milestones and send them to the client, submit a finished stage with photo proof, the homeowner signs off, and payment is released straight to the contractor.

And when the plan changes, which it always does, a pipe behind a wall, a surprise under the floor, that change order goes through Renno too. The contractor writes it up and prices it, and the homeowner approves it before any extra work happens. Nothing on a handshake.

Built for both sides of the job

If you're a homeowner, you can see where your money is at every stage, and nothing moves without your say. The stress of a big renovation stops being about whether you'll be looked after.

If you're a contractor, the money is locked in before you start, and it reaches you as you finish each stage. You spend your time building, not chasing invoices.

Hundreds of contractors already build this way

Renno started in the Netherlands, where hundreds of contractors now run their projects on protected, milestone-based payments. The UK is next, and the problem we heard from 200 builders here is exactly the one we set out to fix at home.

Come and find us this July

We'd rather meet you in person than talk at you online. If you build, hire builders, or keep the books behind the business, you'll find us at:

• Victory Pub, Waterloo: 8 July. Email Daniel Spink at [email protected] to book a free seat.
• Federation of Master Builders National Conference: 9 and 10 July
• FixFest: 11 July

Get started

Setting up your first project takes minutes. Protect the money, agree the scope, and get to work. Start your renovation.

Renno. Build. Done. Paid.