A remeasurement contract fixes rates rather than a total. The work is measured as it is carried out and valued at the tendered rates, so the final sum depends on what is actually built rather than on what was estimated.
It is well suited to work whose extent cannot be known in advance and poorly suited to a client who needs to know what the building will cost.
Where it fits
Groundworks and civils, where the extent of excavation, disposal and fill depends on conditions found rather than on a design.
Remedial and repair work, where the quantity is discovered as the work proceeds.
Infrastructure and external works on a site with variable conditions.
Any package where the design is complete in character but uncertain in quantity, which is a narrower category than it is often taken to be.
What the client gives up
Price certainty, entirely. The tender total is an estimate produced by applying the tendered rates to estimated quantities, and it has no contractual significance beyond establishing the rates.
That surprises clients regularly. A remeasurable tender total looks exactly like a lump sum total on the front page, and the difference only becomes apparent when the quantities move.
For a funded scheme this matters considerably, because a facility is sized against a cost that is now variable by design. The lender's view of that is a live question at appraisal.
Rate loading is the main risk
Where quantities will be remeasured, a contractor who anticipates which items will increase can price those high and the ones likely to reduce low, arriving at a competitive total that becomes expensive in execution.
That is not improper. It is a rational response to a mechanism that rewards it, and the client's protection is to check rate patterns rather than totals at tender.
Items where the estimated quantity looks conservative deserve particular attention, as do rates that sit out of pattern with the rest of the bid. The wider analysis is covered in normalising bids before you compare them.
The quantities still matter
It is tempting to think that because the work will be remeasured, the tender quantities are unimportant. They are not, for two reasons.
They determine the tender total, which is what the client uses for funding, appraisal and decision making. Estimated quantities that are materially wrong produce a total that is materially wrong.
They also determine the competitive comparison, because bidders price rates against expected quantities. A bidder who believes an item will multiply prices it differently from one who does not.
Administration is heavier
Remeasurement means measuring the work as it is built, agreeing it with the contractor, and recording it. That is a continuous exercise rather than a monthly percentage assessment.
It requires site records, joint measurement where appropriate, and a surveyor with time to do it. Where that resource is not provided, the measurement happens late, from records that were not made for the purpose, and it becomes a dispute.
That failure is the pattern described in quantity assumption risk.
Partial remeasurement is usually better
Most schemes do not need to be wholly remeasurable. A lump sum for the parts that are designed, with remeasurable or approximate quantities for the parts that genuinely are not, gives most of the flexibility and keeps most of the certainty.
That approach requires the uncertain elements to be identified and separated at tender, which is the same discipline as defining provisional sums properly, covered in provisional sums, defined and undefined.
On phased schemes the same logic applies by section, and it is set out under complex phasing.
What this means for you
Be clear whether you are buying a price or a set of rates, and make sure everybody relying on the tender total understands which.
Then check the rate pattern rather than the total at tender, and resource the measurement properly during the works. Both are cheap relative to what a poorly administered remeasurable contract costs at the final account. Our approach sits under quantities and take-off.
Considering a remeasurable basis?
Tell us the scheme and how much of the scope is genuinely uncertain. We will set out what remeasurement would cost you in certainty.