The question this piece answers: how does NYCHA pay you, how does it price extra work, and how does it hear a claim? The honest answer is that NYCHA runs two payment systems at once. On a requirements contract, you're paid by the apartment against a ticket — no ticket, no check. On a capital job, you're paid monthly against work in place, under the federal general conditions NYCHA's funded contracts incorporate, and the federal form runs on clocks that don't care whether you knew about them.

We read a current Brooklyn apartment floor-tile requirements contract (the Vandalia Houses VCT specification and Form of Proposal, 2026), two elevator rehabilitation solicitations, the NYCHA Procurement Policy Manual v5 (July 2025) and NYCHA's standard terms, and HUD Form 5370. This is the payments layer of the core profile, NYCHA Has $7.8 Billion and Three Front Doors.

“A super tells you Tuesday to re-route a riser and you write it up three weeks later: under the federal form, the first day of that is already off the table.”

Requirements contracts: paid by the ticket. On a development-specific requirements contract nothing is owed until a work authorization covers the apartment — "no work can commence without an approved Work Authorization or Release," and it's in bold in the form. From there the paper trail is daily: sign the contractor's log on arrival, draw a work ticket from NYCHA's maintenance work-order system through the designated inspector, file a daily report before you leave. When each apartment's finished, submit a Statement of Services with the ticket for the inspector's signature. Skip a step and the form says it plainly — failure "may result in a delay of payment or no payment."

Payment is the unit price per apartment, "calculated only on work completed in the manner provided for in the Specifications." NYCHA "does not guarantee any minimum amount of work" — but a work authorization issued on the last day of the term still has to be finished after the term ends. So you might get no work, or you might get work you have to finish after the contract's over. Price for both.

The term is three years plus two one-year renewals. At each renewal you can ask for a unit-price increase for prevailing-wage and material escalation, with documentation, at NYCHA's "sole and absolute discretion." Inside the term, the contract's Section 43 carries its own mechanism for a prevailing-wage schedule adjustment — the one escalation you can actually count on. Extra work is narrow and pre-priced: the only paid extra on the tile job is an abnormal condition, at an hourly rate fixed in the form, and "written approval must be received from the Development Manager or Superintendent before any extra work can begin."

Capital contracts: the federal clock. Now, a flag before the numbers. Everything in this section comes from HUD Form 5370 — the federal general conditions NYCHA's federally funded contracts incorporate. NYCHA's own Contract Terms and Conditions ride inside each iSupplier package, and whether they restate the federal form word for word or swap in their own retainage and notice figures is something you confirm in your package's front end, not something you take from us. With that said, here's what the federal form says.

Progress payments come "approximately every 30 days" on approved estimates of work in place, against a schedule of values you file before the first payment. Retainage is 10 percent until completion and acceptance — except that after 50 percent completion the contracting officer may pay the balance in full if your performance is satisfactory, and put the 10 percent back if it stops being. Final payment follows acceptance and a release of claims.

Changes. Only a written order from the contracting officer is a change. Anything else you think is a change needs your written notice of its date, circumstances and source. No adjustment is allowed for costs you ran up "more than 20 days (5 days for oral orders)" before that notice. You assert the adjustment within 30 days as a lump-sum proposal with an itemized breakdown — direct costs, indirect costs, profit — plus the time you want. The contracting officer acts within 30 days; no agreement means it's a dispute, and you keep working anyway. Except in an emergency, no change without a prior order. Let's say a super tells you Tuesday to re-route a riser and you write it up three weeks later: under the federal form, the first day of that is already off the table.

Suspension and site conditions run the same 20-day notice rule on suspension costs, and written notice of a differing site condition before you disturb it. Disputes: a written claim to the contracting officer, decided within 60 days, final unless you appeal within 30 — to a higher level at NYCHA, a mediator or arbitrator, or court. Work continues the whole time.

NYCHA's own standard terms for purchase-order work run on the same kind of numbers: 30 days' written notice of a dispute as a "condition precedent" to any claim, and a right to withhold from any payment "such sums as NYCHA may deem ample" against any claim, "just or unjust." Those are the services and purchase-order terms, not the construction general conditions — but they tell you how the Authority thinks about a claim.

Liquidated damages and the Board. The contract summaries for the two elevator rehabilitations list $800 per calendar day on 1,721 and 699 calendar days; the apartment tile contract's summary lists $20 per calendar day. Those come from the solicitation summaries, not the contracts themselves — confirm them in the front end before you bank on either. Big change orders have a second gate: the NYCHA Procurement Policy Manual v5 (July 2025) requires Board approval whenever cumulative change orders pass 25 percent of the initial contract value or $5 million, whichever is higher, and again at each further 25 percent. HUD Form 5370 adds that a modification above NYCHA's approved threshold "shall not be effective until" HUD approves. A change order waiting on a board calendar is not one you can bill.

Wages and Section 3. NYCHA posts two wage documents: Davis-Bacon General Decision NY20260003, modified through August 2026, for construction, and HUD's maintenance wage determination for NYCHA, effective July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2027, for routine and non-routine maintenance. The package says which one applies. Labor Law 220-i registration certificates go in with the bid; the Section 3 resident-hiring plan goes through NYCHA's eComply portal, not the bid.

What to do next. Give written notice on time and keep daily cost records. On a NYCHA requirements contract that means a work ticket in hand before the first tile and a signed Statement of Services before you leave the building. On a capital job it means a change-notice letter within 20 days of any direction, a priced proposal within 30, and a cost file that splits direct, indirect and profit the way the federal form asks for it — then read your package's own Contract Terms and Conditions and see whether NYCHA moved any of those numbers.

The project-specific contract controls; this isn't legal advice — have your counsel review it.