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Construction Law Authority / Posts tagged "Negotiation"

Construction Contracting for the Owner – Essential Terms of construction contracts

I wanted to address key terms for any contruction contract.  Although some of these may seem mind numbingly obvious, I have seen contracts over the years that failed to address very critical points. 1. Scope of Work - What are you trying to get done?  For more detail go here. 2. Contract Price - What is the price and how do we determine that? It depends on the type of contract.  Does the price include permitting, bonding or additional insurance? 3. Start Date and End Date - When do you want the work to start? When should it be completed? 4. Insurance - How much and who has to carry it? 5. Indeminfication - Who has to hold who harmless?   6. Dispute Resolution - Are you agreeing to arbitration or litigation in the case of a dispute?  Which disputes are subject to these provisions? What jurisdiction will these disputes be resolved in? Does the prevailing party get their legal fees back?...

Construction Contracting for the Owner: The Owner – Contractor Relationship

   In choosing a Contractor, often the Owner chooses a Contractor through a bidding process. Sometimes the Owner engages a Contractor on their own.  However the Contractor is contracted it is important to spell out the details of the terms. Courts will not protect an Owner from a bad deal that the Owner has voluntarily entered. This means that those multimillion dollar one page contracts floating around (I have seen a number of them over the years) will be enforced by a court if the Owner does not live up to the terms, no matter how one sided. In the bidding process, the Owner, with the help of the Design Professional, sends out a bid packet to various contractors and invites them to bid on the project.  The Owner and Design Professional then evaluate the bids and review the responsiveness of the bid, the responsibleness of the bids (is the bidder lowballing now in hopes of issuing...

Construction Contracting for the Owner: The Owner – Design Professional Relationship

Once the owner has decided to undertake a project they generally retain the services of a design professional. The design professional is the engineer or architect hired by the owner to be used at various points throughout the project. General discussions between the owner and design professional should include the owner’s expectations of the projects, budgets, specific materials which need to be used or special considerations about the project. In both renovations and new construction these discussions would also include aesthetic considerations.  Although all these discussions may happen, the scope of the design professional’s relationship with the owner is that which is spelled out in the contract between the owner and design professionals. An owner in retaining the design professional needs to define his expectations of the design professional, and those expectations should be reduced to a written contract. As an owner, if you want the design professional to provide contract administration then you must ask...

Construction Contracting for the Owner – Parties to a Construction Project

  This is part 1 of our series on Construction Contracting for the owner.  Once you have decided to begin a construction project, whether this project is a reroof, concrete restoration, painting, repaving or anything else, there are generally 3 main groups involved. The first of these groups is the owner. The owner is the person or entity on whose behalf the work is being done. The types of owners range from an individual, development entity, hotel, condominium association, homeowner's association or a governmental agency.  Although the owner may be using a bank to finance the construction, the owner is the party generally responsible for ensuring payment to the other 2 groups. The second group is generally the design professionals. This group consists of the engineer or architect hired by the owner to prepare any drawings or specifications for the work to be done.  In larger projects, the owner may contract with an Architect who then hires various subconsultants (geotechnical engineer, structural...