If your supplier uses joint check agreements then you are fortunate indeed. Joint check agreements are very helpful if you do not have good credit and/or if you don't want to have to worry about paying high material bills before your general contractor pays you.

The way our supplier works it: We fill out the joint check agreement and then fax and/or mail the form to our general contractor. He signs his section and then returns it to us. We then forward the joint check agreement to our supplier.

At this point we have an agreement with both our general contractor and our supplier that each time the general contractor issues us a payment on the job he will issue a check made out jointly to us and our supplier. This check will be for either the whole amount invoiced for or just for the material owing (with a 2nd check made out to you and not joint to make up the balance of your invoice).

Many times the general contractor will issue two checks, one that is joint to cover the material and one that is not joint which covers the balance of the payment due to us. We record the joint check into our accounts receivable, we endorse the back and then we mail the check to our supplier to pay for our material expenses.

We record the second check (which is written only to us, not joint) and deposit it into our business account. Don't be afraid to ask your supplier if he/she will consider a joint check program for you. They are protected in that they can (and should) file a preliminary notice on the project, thereby clearing the way to file a lien on a project if the general contractor does not pay timely.

Back to list of articles