Read their cost to complete against your original scope
A cost to complete is one of the easiest figures in construction to inflate, so read it line by line against the scope in your own subcontract. Take out upgrades, other trades' work and extras before you argue about rates.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
Your main contractor appoints the completion contractor in a hurry, on its own terms, to finish whatever it now wants. The price and invoices arrive as one figure, and that figure is set against you in the termination account. Inside it there is often work you were never asked to do. Look for betterment, meaning a better specification than yours. Look too for fire stopping from another package, making good other trades' damage, and changes the client instructed after you left. None of that is the cost of completing your work. The only way to find it is to read the completion documents against your scope, line by line, and list what does not belong separately.
How to do it
- Ask in writing for the completion contract, the quotes, the instructions to the completion contractor and its invoices.
- Set each line beside the item of your scope it completes, and mark any line with no matching item.
- Move betterment, other packages' work and later changes into their own schedule, with the reason for each.
- Answer the remaining lines on quantity and rate, and send the whole schedule back in your name.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A roofing subcontractor's subcontract is terminated with the last third of the roof unfinished. The main contractor's account includes a cost to complete of £210,000, backed by one invoice from the completion contractor.
What happens
- The subcontractor asks for the completion contractor's quote and schedule of rates, which arrive 3 weeks later.
- Read against the original scope, £28,000 is a thicker insulation build-up the client instructed after the termination. Another £17,000 is rainwater goods from the drainage package.
- The rest is answered on quantity and rate, and £6,000 of remeasured area is agreed.
The outcome
The cost to complete in the account falls from £210,000 to £159,000. That takes £51,000 off the balance claimed against the subcontractor.
To have this done for you, see our Termination Claim service.