I am a subcontractor on a large commercial project and I am being told by the General Contractor that the owner needs all of our subs and suppliers to provide unconditional progress releases for the invoice month in order to process our invoice for payment. However, many of our subs and suppliers on this project are stating that they will not provide a release because they did not file a preliminary notice on the project and they do not have the project setup with a job number in their system either. My question is: If our subs and suppliers did not file a preliminary notice and do not have the job setup in their system, do they have to still provide us with an unconditional progress release when asked to by the GC and owner?
This issue comes up from time to time and there is not a perfect answer. Your sub-subs and suppliers understandably do not want to provide paperwork for a sale that was not posted to a job account and/or protected by a preliminary notice. In your suppliers' case, often times they have no idea what job the materials are for when they sell on a shop account. That said, many suppliers will cooperate especially if you are a good customer.
What does your contract say with the GC? Is there an express requirement to provide an unconditional release from all suppliers? You may be able to push back on the requirement if the contract is silent on this issue and, sometimes, it helps to explain to the GC why a sub-sub or supplier isn't willing to give a release since you did not order the material on a job account.
I find that talking through this catch-22 with both your GC and your sub-subs/suppliers usually gets a resolution.
---CN