Payment has always been a major cause of friction for construction projects – greater transparency and fairness for suppliers was one of the drivers behind the Construction Acts 1996 and 2009. Many construction disputes, especially adjudications, revolve around whether the supplier has been paid what it believes is a ‘fair’
At least one-third of UK construction projects finish late – not against their initial schedule but against the extended one! What this means is that time is less important – or at least less prioritised – than time or money. [You do need to determine which is the client’s key
Your contract is the tool that will enable you/your client to get specialist goods, works or services to meet a particular need. You/your client will want to know what goods, works or services the supplier is providing, that it is competent to provide them, and that those works will help
Recording the identity of the parties accurately in your subcontract is the easiest part of writing your contract. It really doesn’t matter who they are. In English law you are free to contract with just about anyone (as long as they have legal capacity). For building contracts (full or letter
The annual ARCADIS Global Disputes Reports consistently link construction disputes with failures to: Administer the contract properly (i.e. run the project) Understand or comply with the contract’s obligations Use the procedures in the contract. If you create a letter of intent that is easy to read, easy to understand and
Like any contract, your letter of intent should accurately, briefly and concisely describe what the parties have agreed. Essentially, using a letter of intent means the parties have not agreed all the commercial aspects for the project, or all the legal terms for the full contract. The parties have agreed
Autumn here brings me a new cohort of students who are starting the University of Salford’s Masters in Construction Law. I am the tutor for the first module, on English contract law and we have been discussing the requirements for a contract. It never ceases to surprise me how often
The fundamental purpose of a letter of intent is to help you do business by getting your project underway quickly. There is a right way to start your project quickly and a wrong way. Why recycling is bad! Let’s assume you (acting for the paying party, whether that’s the developer/client
Collateral warranties (if you don’t know what they are, read what is a collateral warranty) are common on UK construction projects. The problem that they were designed to address is that if the works or services are performed defectively then it won’t necessarily be the employer of the wrongdoers who
A collateral warranty is a simple document designed to create contractual links between the provider of goods, works or services (the warrantor) and a party with a financial interest in the project (the stakeholder). [This definition is taken from the Introduction to How to Write Simple and Effective Collateral Warranties
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