Charging for Multiple Reviews of a Submittal

[JohnVAME]

Hello,

We are a consulting design firm and we review construction documents from our contractors versus the bid documents.

We estimate construction document reviews by calculating the time it takes to review the submittal and then tacking on some factor (usually 1.5) with the assumption that about half the drawings will come back for a second review.

In some cases we get very poor contractors that WILL NOT comply with the contract documents which causes multiple submittals. Even after a review detailing the changes that need to be made.. drawings come back only partially corrected - and at times with NEW problems. One set of drawings I am reviewing are at Revision 8 and counting!

Have you? or Do you believe there is a legitimate claim to go back to the owner and for more $?

 

[KENAT]

If it's in the contract.

I'm not sure the contract/legal terminology but something along the lines of "For documents that need to go through review more than twice an additional fee shall be charged..."

By go back to the owner do you mean the owner of the your contractor or the person you're contracting for?

I would have thought you'd deduct the extra cost from what the contractor charges you if anything.

 

[JohnVAME]

Yeah - it's not spelled out in our contract - probably a bad decision on our part - however we have worked for the same client numerous times and our contract has become sort of solidified and changes aren't looked upon well.

I imagine I would send a change of scope to the owner (who has hired us as consultants) and then the owner would turn around and make the contractor pay the fee (or withold payment).

I mostly was wondering now how common it is to see language about multiple reviews in contracts?

 

[SylvestreW]

Here's our semi-related problem. We provide draft reports to the client. In the past, the client would make comments/corrections and we'd re-issue the draft for approval.
Once a draft came back about 6 or 7 times with revision (on top of revision - some even reverting to previous comments that were asked to be changed).

Long story short, we now have in our contract that ONE draft will be sent to clients for comment, and revision to subsequent drafts (not including technical errors) are charged on T&M basis.

I'd change the contract for future projects.
And for this one, prepare a detailed list of errors the contractor made, a list of errors not corrected, new errors etc etc per revision. Include details about time spent on document review, communication and other related things and explain that the extra costs are directly related to the contrators lack of detail. Then ask for money.

 

[davsy]

I have seen this type of wording before when employing consulting engineers for things such as Pressure vessel design and drawing approval. We have typically seen scope wording such as "to review design calculations and drawings including one revision. Subsequent revision submissions to be charged at £xx/ hour" That limits the consultant to a maximum of two submissions to check any more is normally chargeable and the owner would typically put that back on the contractor (they soon learn).

 

[dik]

Your relief is to discuss the problem with the owner (your client?) and let him discuss it with his contractor (hopefully). You can offer to provide support to the owner to help him recover your money. One of the problems with design-build...

Dik