No. For a qualifying residential conversion, building contractor services should be charged at the 5% reduced rate of VAT under HMRC Notice 708. If your contractor has charged 20%, that is an overcharge. You cannot simply reclaim the extra 15% via VAT431C — you need to ask the contractor for a corrected invoice showing 5%. The difference represents real money you have paid unnecessarily.
On a £150,000 conversion contract, the difference between a correctly charged 5% invoice and an incorrectly charged 20% invoice is £22,500 in excess VAT. That is not reclaimable via VAT431C — it can only be recovered by getting the contractor to issue a corrected invoice.
A VAT-registered contractor carrying out building work on a qualifying conversion should apply the 5% reduced rate to their labour and materials supply. This is a legal obligation under Notice 708, not optional.
If the contractor charges 20% instead of 5%, the excess 15% is not reclaimable by you via VAT431C. Only the correctly applicable 5% VAT is within the scope of the reclaim scheme.
Once you have a corrected invoice showing 5%, that 5% VAT on contractor services is fully reclaimable via your VAT431C claim after completion.
Ask your contractor to issue a credit note for the original invoice and a new invoice at 5%. The contractor reclaims the excess VAT they overpaid to HMRC. Do this before completion — it becomes much harder once a project finishes.
VATBuild is not affiliated with HMRC. References to HMRC publications are for informational purposes. Always consult a qualified tax adviser before submitting a reclaim.
VATBuild checks every contractor invoice for your conversion project and flags any invoice where the VAT rate charged does not match the rate that should apply. It distinguishes between contractor services (expected 5%) and direct material purchases (correctly 20%) and generates a supplier correction report identifying which contractors need to reissue their invoices.