I'm doing changed work on a say-so
Changes keep arriving by phone call and site conversation, and almost none of it is in writing.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
What's happening?
It happens most on friendly jobs. A contracts manager asks for a wall to move, an engineer marks up a drawing, and your team gets on with it. Everyone agrees at the time. Months later, nobody can say who asked, what changed or when.
Your subcontract may need a written instruction, a confirmation sent a set way, or an instruction from a named person. A record of what was said and done proves those facts. It does not on its own make the change authorised or payable, or replace any notice your subcontract requires.
Leave it and the proof fades: messages get deleted, people move on and memories blur. A confirmation sent months later is not an automatic cure, so review the earlier directions now, while the evidence can still be found.
The solution
Confirm every new direction in writing on the day it is given. Send it by the route your subcontract names, to the person it names. Say who gave it, what changed, where and when, and link it to the drawing or area.
Unpaid Variation Prevention sets that routine up and proves it on a live month with your team. The directions already carried out are a separate job. Variation Claim rates the evidence for each one and prepares confirmations for any still in time. It values the items the evidence supports and presses for payment. Items with no support are recorded as unagreed, not dressed up as variations.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A drylining subcontractor's foreman has taken fourteen directions from the main contractor's contracts manager over 4 months, by phone and on walk-rounds. None of them is in writing. The subcontract says the subcontractor must confirm a verbal instruction to the main contractor's quantity surveyor within a stated period.
What happens
- Each direction is rebuilt from what survives: who gave it, the scope, the date, the area and the drawing it changed. Each is linked to the marked-up drawings, photographs and messages that still exist.
- Nine directions, worth £26,000 on the subcontractor's measure, are backed by a marked drawing, an email or a photograph of the changed work.
- Five, worth £11,000, rest on memory alone or are disputed by the contracts manager. They are recorded as unsupported, not turned into variations.
- From that day the subcontractor confirms every new instruction itself, by the route the subcontract names. Each confirmation gives the source, the scope, the recipient and the date.
- The nine evidenced items go into the next application with their sources attached.
The fourteen directions
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Nine evidenced directions | £26,000 |
| Five unsupported directions | £11,000 |
| Agreed from the nine | £22,000 |
| Disputed on quantity | £4,000 |
The outcome
£22,000 is agreed and £4,000 is disputed on quantity. The five unsupported items stay on the record as unagreed. The gap in the earlier confirmations is stated openly, not described as cured.