Do I have to pay their cost to complete?
Only the part your subcontract allows, and only once it is proved against your original scope.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
If a termination for your default was valid, most subcontracts let your main contractor recover the extra cost of finishing your work. So the question becomes what that cost really is. Completion prices often include betterment, meaning a better specification than yours. They can also include work outside your package, making good other trades' damage and changes instructed after you left. None of that is the cost of completing your work. Ask for the completion contract, the quotes and the invoices. Set them line by line against your scope, and answer each line. If the termination was not valid, the position may be quite different, and that is a question for your solicitor.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A roofing subcontractor's account shows a cost to complete of £210,000, backed by one invoice from the completion contractor.
What happens
- The completion contractor's quote and schedule of rates are requested in writing.
- Read against the original scope, £28,000 is insulation the client instructed after the termination. Another £17,000 is rainwater goods from the drainage package.
- The remaining lines are answered on quantity and rate, and £6,000 of remeasured area is agreed.
The outcome
The cost to complete falls from £210,000 to £159,000, taking £51,000 off the balance claimed.
Testing the cost to complete line by line, inside the termination account, is part of our Termination Claim service.