What to do when a contractor abandons a site comes down to five steps in the first week. Record what is there, stop paying, give notice the way the contract requires, check whether the firm is in business rescue, and only then appoint someone to finish.
The order matters, because each step protects the next one. It is also not a theoretical risk in Johannesburg. On 25 September 2026 News24 reported that Johannesburg Water is trying to recover money after a stalled project in which R30 million was lost.
A household, a body corporate or a landlord with a half-built extension faces the same event at a smaller number. Usually it has far less paperwork behind it, which is why the first week counts for so much.
Day one: record the site before anyone touches it
Photograph every room, trench and stockpile with the date showing. Count the materials on site and note what is fixed and what is loose. List the plant and scaffolding, and whose it is if you know.
That record is the baseline for everything that follows. It is what the next contractor prices from, and what any claim against the first one rests on. It also ends the argument about work that was "done" but cannot be found.
Change the locks or the gate code only once the record is complete, and write down when you did it.
Stop paying, and work out where you stand
Hold any payment that is not yet due, and check your contract before withholding anything that is. Then put three figures side by side: what the contract is worth, what you have paid, and what the work on site is honestly worth today. The gap between the second and third figures is your exposure.
Clients who have "paid most of it" usually find the gap is larger than they expected, because payments ran ahead of the work. Retention, if the contract provided for it, is the one amount still in your hands. It exists for exactly the period after the contractor has gone.
Check the security as well. An ECA(SA) training note on the JBCC points out that clause 11 of the Principal Building Agreement sets out the security arrangements. Whatever your contract, find out what security the contractor gave. If you hold a guarantee, whoever issued it is one of your first calls.
Give notice the way the contract says
A WhatsApp message asking "where are you" is not notice. The same ECA(SA) note records that the JBCC expressly provides that notices may not be given by social media. Whatever form your contract takes, find its notice clause and send a written notice to the address it names.
The notice should record the date work stopped, the state of the site, and what you require the contractor to do and by when. Keep it factual and keep a copy. The contract's termination clause decides what you may do if there is no response, so read it before the letter goes rather than after. An hour with an attorney at this point costs far less than a job that stalls for a year.
What if the contractor is in business rescue?
If the contractor is in business rescue, you generally cannot start or continue legal proceedings against it without the practitioner's written consent or the leave of the court. That is the general moratorium under section 133 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008, as Werksmans sets out.
The moratorium does not extinguish your claim. Werksmans also notes that the Supreme Court of Appeal has confirmed that cancelling an agreement is not, without more, enforcement action prohibited by section 133. The judgment is Cloete Murray NO v FirstRand Bank Ltd t/a Wesbank [2015] ZASCA 39. Whether you have a right to cancel, and whether you exercise it properly, still turns on the contract and the facts.
A contractor short of cash can be close to business rescue. Check the company's status before you issue summons, and before you assume you can simply cancel. Werksmans advises that a claim owed before rescue is reconciled as at the date rescue began. It then goes to the practitioner with the documents behind it, so your day-one record and payment schedule are the claim.
Appointing someone to finish
Only once the record, the notice and the status check are done should the next contractor walk on. A finishing contractor inherits somebody else's work, and will price that uncertainty in unless your record answers it.
Check the new firm harder than you checked the first. Pull the five registers before any deposit changes hands, and pay against work on site rather than ahead of it. The payment schedule is the one control a client has from the first day to the last.
Arabella Infrastructure Solutions is a Johannesburg-based vetted contractor panel that introduces a client to a contractor already verified for the job, and stays accountable for that introduction through the job. For a client restarting a stalled site, that is one accountable relationship instead of a procurement exercise started from scratch. How that works for a client is on the client page.
On Monday
Walk the site with your phone and take the photographs, with the date showing. Then put the contract, the payment record and the notice clause on one table.
Write down three figures: contract value, amount paid and value on site. That page starts every conversation that follows, including the one with the builder who finishes the job.
