What do you need from us to start?

The current drawing set with revision numbers, the specification if one exists, and the model if there is one. If part of that is missing we can still measure, with the gaps recorded as assumptions on the face of the schedule. What we will not do is silently fill a gap and let it read as a measured quantity.

Which standard do you measure to?

NRM2 for bills and pricing schedules, NRM1 elemental structure where the output feeds a cost plan . If a project is running to a different rule set, we will follow it and say so in the basis of measurement. What matters is that one rule applies throughout and that everyone pricing knows which one.

Our model is not very good. Is it still worth using?

Often yes, for the parts that are modelled properly. The judgement is which elements to trust and which to measure conventionally, and that judgement is made explicitly rather than assumed. A model that is only reliable for the frame and the envelope is still saving you time on the frame and the envelope.

Can you check quantities in a claim or final account?

Yes, and it is a frequent instruction. Remeasurement of contested work, verification of a contractor's quantities, and testing whether claimed items were already inside the original scope. That work sits alongside final accounts and disputes .

Retention Recovery Assessment | Released Retention

01
What is held and by whom: the retention balance as it stands, reconciled against the certificates rather than against what anybody remembers.
02
The dates that govern release: practical completion, the defects period and the release points, taken from the contract rather than from the usual pattern.
03
The defects position: what remains outstanding, what has been closed out and what is being relied on to keep the money where it is.
04
A route to recovery: what has to happen before the balance falls due, in order, with the notices the contract requires at each point.

By the time the balance is due, the people who ran the project have moved on and the paperwork that would release it was never finished. The money sits there because nobody owns the step that frees it.

Retention release turns on events rather than on the calendar. Practical completion, the start and end of the defects period, the certificate that follows it. Each one has a date in the contract, and each one has a date in reality, and those two are often not the same.

The defects list is the usual sticking point. Items are raised, some are done, few are signed off, and the list is never formally closed. While it stays open, the balance has a reason to stay where it is.

There is also a simpler problem. On schemes that ran for years, nobody is certain what the retention figure actually is. Establishing the number from the certificates is frequently the first useful thing that happens.

01

Retention provisions

What the contract holds, at what percentage, in how many parts and against which events each part is released.

02

Practical completion

Whether it was certified, when, and what the certificate actually says, since the whole release sequence hangs off that date.

03

Defects and making good

The outstanding list, what has been closed out, and what the contract requires before the defects certificate can issue.

04

Release dates established

Each release point fixed from the contract and the certificates, so the question becomes whether the money is due, not when.

05

The balance reconciled

Retention deducted across the certificates against retention released, so the figure being chased is the right one.

06

Notices and next steps

What the contract requires you to serve, in what order, and what follows if the balance still does not move.

This is a narrow piece of work and it is meant to stay that way. Where retention is the only money in question, it is far cheaper than a review of the whole account and it answers the question you actually have.

Where the retention argument turns out to be part of a wider disagreement about the account, we will say so, and the final account dispute review is the piece of work that fits instead.

Final account dispute review

Practical completion was never certified. What then?

Then the release sequence has no starting point, which is a contractual problem before it is a money problem. The assessment establishes what did happen, what the contract treats as completion, and what follows for the balance.

The defects list has been open for two years. Is that normal?

It is common, and it is usually the reason the money has not moved. Most contracts set a period for making good rather than an open-ended one, so an old list is weaker ground for holding the balance than the paying side assumes.

Can you tell me what the retention figure actually is?

Yes, and on long schemes that is often the first useful output. The balance is reconciled from the certificates rather than taken from either side's spreadsheet, because in practice those two rarely agree.

Does this cover retention bonds?

Where a bond stands in place of cash retention, the assessment covers what the bond requires and when it falls away. The contractual question is the same: what has to happen before the security is released.