Late Invoice - Need legal advice

I need some legal advice (i prefer to settle everything amicably but i'd like to know my basic position):


We had a contractor renovating our apartment in 2009. Work was completed more or less by early Dec 2009 and we moved into the flat on that date. Upon moving in, we agreed on a defects list, most of which (but not everything) was subsequently remedied.


Subsequently i have reminded the contractor several times about the outstanding defects. However it also happened that the contractor never sent us the final invoice (even though i reminded him several times over the course of 2010).


As a result we did not pressure him to remedy all the defects because we essentially thought that he has forgotten to collect the money from us.


Come Feb 2011, he sent us the outstanding invoice with a one-liner 'sorry for sending the invoice late'.


As i said above, our most likely course of action is that we will ask him to remedy the outstanding defects and then pay the bill (a substantial amount by the way).


However, in the country where i am from (continential Europe), a service provider has only one year upon completion of service to present the invoice, or else the invoice is void/invalid (and we could save a big amount of money in such a scenario).


Does anyone know whether a similar concept of a one year to present invoice exists in the common law legal system (or specifically under the Hong Kong law)?

Basic position: it's 6 years for common law jurisdictions + no right of set-off unless otherwise agreed.