Category 06
Insights on final accounts
Assembling an account, testing entitlement, negotiation and the route into adjudication.
Closing a final account on design and build
On a measured contract the final account is largely arithmetic. On design and build it is an argument about scope, and the documents that decide it...
The records that decide an account you have not had yet
Nobody keeps records for the account they expect to be easy. The records that matter are made months before anybody knows they will be needed.
The order in which a final account settles
A final account with sixty open items is not one negotiation. It is sixty, and the order they are taken in decides how long the whole thing takes.
Contra charges and the right to set off
Withholding money because the contractor has cost you something feels like common sense. Whether it survives depends on what was written down and when.
Settling 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.
When 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.
Adjudication, what it is and what it costs
Twenty eight days sounds like a long time until you are the party who has to answer a referral you did not know was coming.
Prolongation costs, proving the loss
Prolongation is the most commonly claimed head and one of the most commonly overstated, usually because the wrong period has been used.
Global claims and why they usually fail
A global claim is what happens when the records will not support an itemised one. It is a symptom rather than a strategy.
Defects, retention and the last five per cent
Retention is the client's last practical leverage. It is also the money most often released by inattention rather than by decision.
Testing entitlement before you argue about value
Two parties can spend six months negotiating the value of something one of them was never entitled to claim. It happens constantly.
How a final account is actually assembled
Most final accounts are argued rather than assembled. Building one properly takes longer at the start and settles faster at the end.