Close the account while the people are still there
Submit your final account early and answer quickly, because every month after practical completion the people who can prove it move on. Treat speed as part of the strategy: the slowest party usually ends up with the account it wanted.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
The site manager who remembers why the instruction was given leaves a month after handover. The other side's surveyor who agreed the remeasure in principle moves to another job. After 6 months, two people who were not there are arguing the account from files they did not build. The side that has to prove its case suffers most, and that is usually the one claiming money. Delay also suits your main contractor for a simpler reason: money not yet paid is money in its bank. Speed is not aggression. It is the only way to argue the account while it can still be proved.
How to do it
- Submit the final account within the subcontract's period, or within a month of practical completion if it sets none.
- Take short signed notes from the site team on every disputed item before people leave, and file them with the account.
- Answer every query from the other side within a week, and chase every unanswered point of your own on a fixed cycle.
- Ask for a meeting date when you submit, and propose the agenda head by head.
- Keep a log of the other side's response times; it becomes useful when the account is later said to be unproven.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontractor completes a £450,000 package, and the main contractor's site team is due to leave site within a month. The subcontractor's final account is £60,000 above certified. Most of it is variations the site manager instructed verbally, confirmed in writing at the time.
What happens
- The final account is submitted 3 weeks after practical completion, before the site manager leaves.
- The surveyor meets the site manager and the main contractor's surveyor on site to walk the disputed variations, and takes a signed note.
- Queries are answered within days, and a settlement meeting is fixed for the following month.
The outcome
The account settles at £54,000 above certified within 10 weeks of completion. Argued a year later, with the site manager gone, it would have rested on memory against a new surveyor's doubts.
To have this set up for you, see our Final Account Dispute Prevention service.