Insights
Commercial writing for people carrying the risk
Six subjects, written for developers, funders and investors rather than for other surveyors. No case studies dressed up as marketing and no numbers we cannot stand behind.
Categories
Where the commercial questions sit.
Cost planning and estimating
Budgets, elemental cost plans, contingency and the figures a board or a lender will test.
Read the categoryMeasurement and BIM take-off
NRM2, bills of quantities, model based take-off and the audit trail behind a defensible number.
Read the categoryProcurement and contracts
Routes, tender lists, JCT and NEC, bid analysis and where liability actually lands.
Read the categoryCost control and variations
Valuations, change control, outturn forecasting and the records that settle an argument.
Read the categoryDevelopment finance and monitoring
Initial appraisal, drawdown certification, cost to complete and reporting written for a credit team.
Read the categoryFinal accounts and disputes
Assembling an account, testing entitlement, negotiation and the route into adjudication.
Read the categoryLatest
Most recent.
Why a cost per square metre fails at tender
The rate that made the appraisal work is almost never the rate the scheme gets built at. Here is where the gap comes from, and how to close it...
Read 07 May 2026Verifying the final account before the last release
After the last release the lender has advanced everything and holds nothing. Whatever is going to be checked has to be checked before that.
Read 19 Mar 2026Reading a borrower's cost plan as a lender
You are not checking whether the number is right. You are checking whether it can be tested at all.
Read 05 Feb 2026Extensions of time and the cost that follows
Granting time is not agreeing to pay. The two are decided under different provisions and on different evidence, and they are settled together far...
Read 11 Dec 2025Change control that stops a claim forming
Claims are not caused by change. They are caused by change that nobody valued while the facts were still available.
Read 30 Oct 2025Payment terms and what they do to cash flow
Payment terms look administrative until a facility drawdown cycle and a payment cycle fall out of step, at which point they are everything.
Read 18 Sep 2025Reading contract amendments as a commercial risk
Nobody signs a standard form any more. The deal is in the amendments, and they arrive as an appendix nobody prices.
Read 07 Aug 2025Professional fees and the costs outside the contract
A construction cost plan describes the building. An appraisal has to describe the development, and the difference between them is large.
Read 26 Jun 2025Remeasurement contracts and where they bite
A remeasurable contract gives you competitive rates and no fixed price. That is sometimes exactly right and frequently misunderstood.
Read 15 May 2025What a bill of quantities is actually for
Bills of quantities are described as old fashioned by people who have never had to value a variation without one.
Read 03 Apr 2025Settling early versus fighting on
Most disputes settle. The only question is how much is spent before they do, and whether the settlement is better than the one available at the start.
Read 20 Feb 2025When the records are thin, what can still be proved
Every contested account arrives with worse records than either party remembers. The question is what survives.
Read