TL;DR
Retainage is the percentage of each construction progress payment—typically 5 to 10 percent—the owner withholds until the project reaches completion, keeping leverage for the contractor to finish punch-list items and correct defects. State statutes cap the rate and set release deadlines on public work, and contractors flow comparable terms down to subcontractors.
What it means
Retainage is the percentage of each construction progress payment—typically 5 to 10 percent—the owner withholds until the project reaches completion, keeping leverage for the contractor to finish punch-list items and correct defects. State statutes cap the rate and set release deadlines on public work, and contractors flow comparable terms down to subcontractors. Because the withheld money often exceeds a job's profit margin, release terms are among the most negotiated lines in a contract.
Where it sits in the glossary
Retainage is part of the Legal group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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