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Give your site team one page on what the subcontract requires

The people who must give the notices and keep the records are on site, not in the office with the subcontract. Put what they must do on one page: the notices, the records, the deductions to watch and who to call.

Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.

Why it matters

A subcontract is signed in the office and filed there, but the duties in it are triggered on site. Think of an instruction given by word of mouth, a delay caused by another trade, or a deduction threatened in a meeting. If your site manager does not know that a spoken instruction must be confirmed in writing within 5 days, the office finds out too late. The same goes for a delay notice that is a condition of more time. One page in the cabin gets read; a 90 page subcontract does not.

How to do it

  1. Take the notices, records and deadlines in the subcontract that start on site. Write each as an instruction: what happens, what to do, by when and to whom.
  2. Add the deductions the main contractor may make and what to do when one is threatened.
  3. Name the person in the office to call about each, with a number.
  4. Keep it to one page, put it in the cabin, and walk the site manager through it before work starts.
  5. Update it when the subcontract is varied, and date each version.

Example

Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.

The facts

A drainage subcontractor's site manager has never seen its £420,000 subcontract. It requires written confirmation of spoken instructions within 5 days, and daywork sheets signed within 48 hours.

What happens

  1. The subcontractor writes a one page sheet with eight lines. They cover instructions, delays, daywork, damage by others, deductions, access, defects, and the two people in the office to call.
  2. The office walks the site manager through it on the first morning, and it goes on the cabin wall.
  3. Over the job, the site manager confirms 31 spoken instructions in writing, each inside 5 days.

The outcome

The variations those instructions produced, worth £47,000, are valued without argument about whether they were instructed. On the subcontractor's previous job, the same kind of instructions went unconfirmed and £18,000 was written off in the final account.

To have this done for you, see our Post-Signing Contract Review service.