If you quote a job on a lump-sum basis, how do you protect yourself from protracted timelines?
Just had a client ask me to complete a project he put on hold for over a year after it was ~80% complete and, he balked at additional dollars to finish it up.
Regardless of how I shake it out, leaning toward eating it/ living and learning, how do you protect yourselves from similar situations?
Thanks in advance.
If you have a contract there should be language in it to protect you from this kind of thing. If you don't have a contract you might want to look at coming up with a standard one.
Hopefully you have language in your contract to deal with this. For me the previous contract was breached when he stopped work.
I would show him the dollars he would owe under the previous contract and what I plan to charge him for the new work. Remobilizatiom is a real cost that you should never eat. Evidence, codes and ordinances are not static. If he can't understand that you may want to send him down the road...
Understood, David.
I have a (fairly) standard contract but, I haven't ever had a job linger like this one.
I was trying to draft a clause: If have passed since notice to proceed and has been unable to complete the project scope as a result of _____________ action (or inaction), project work will stop and remaining project fees must be negotiated prior to recommencing work.
Seems awkward and near impossible to cover all issues that could lead to such delays.
I know our contract has a termination clause that will be paid for the work performed to date. We would then just start a new job with new terms of cost when there is that long of a delay. If its a good client you should be able to work with them on this and get some extra money for the delay.
If its an infrequent occurance maybe there is no real need to "protect" yourself from it...
Maybe its just one of those things that happen occasionally.
I'm not sure I understand how a delay would cost you a significant amount of money, but I trust you have some reason.
I would include an escalation clause on a lump sum contract, that becomes applicable after a certain agreed date.
The rate of increase would also have to be agreed upfront.
Down here, escalation rates are linked closely to consumer price index and various other indices that the civil engineering industry track.
I don't have any tight language on this particular issue.
I think I see where you stand with the idea of a breech; although, I think that would be easier to demonstrate for a construction layout contract. This is more boundary and closing documents and it is getting under my skin...
Going to have to chalk it up to life (as noted in an earlier post). I am drafting a clause that tries to capture the issue for future contracts, though.
After thinking it over, I probably "wasted" some of my budget trying to push the thing over the third party hump it hit.
Now, I'm sour-graped because the client is holding me to the original scope (regardless of my efforts). Should have stayed away from it or charged for add-services at the time.
... dumb@zz me.
Thanks for the input. That's a straightforward way to quantify changes in project expense over a substantial delay.
Thanks again to everybody. I'm out.
