About this Guide
The new RIBA Concise Building Contract 2015 and RIBA Domestic Building Contract 2014 are welcome additions to the range of standard contracts available for use on small and medium-scale projects that follow a traditional procurement route. They have been developed in response to feedback from RIBA members, and have been designed to be clear, flexible and suited to the needs of consultants and their clients.
This Guide is intended to assist users of the new contracts. It assumes no prior knowledge of the contracts or of construction contract law. As well as examining the provisions of the contracts, it also covers related legal topics, such as relevant legislation, contract formation and dispute resolution.
The first chapter of the Guide discusses the situations where it may be appropriate to use these contracts, particularly in the context of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and consumer protection legislation, and outlines the contracts’ key provisions. Detailed tables compare the contracts with each other and with other standard building contracts. The second chapter examines information that should be included in the tender package, and the formation and execution of the contract. The Guide then introduces the roles of the customer and employer (referred to as the ‘client’), the contractor and the contract administrator, presenting tables of their duties and powers. The remaining chapters look in detail at programming and revisions of time, control of the works, certification and payment, insurance, termination and dispute resolution.
The contracts contain a wide variety of useful provisions, some of which may be new to users, such as the collaborative working (advance warnings, joint resolution of delay, proposals for improvements and cost savings) and project management provisions (pre-start meeting and progress meetings), and the time-bar clauses in relation to contractor claims. They also include some useful optional provisions, for example for milestone payments, for a contractor programme (with penalties for non-provision), for required specialists (for whom the contractor takes entire responsibly), for contractor design, with a ‘fit for purpose’ liability option, for new building warranties and for a risk register. All of these are discussed in the Guide.
As with any new contract, the RIBA Building Contracts do not yet have a proven track record. However, assurances can be given as to their legal robustness and usability in practice; a number of potential users, experts and lawyers were asked to review drafts of the contracts and their comments acted upon, and the contracts have been written in plain English to ensure that their provisions will be easily understood by any user. Although there is no case law directly related to the RIBA Building Contracts, it is still possible to analyse their provisions by analogy with existing case law on similar contracts. A comparative method has therefore been used throughout this Guide, both as a means of explaining key provisions and to justify any comments and interpretation of various clauses.
When first using one of the new RIBA Building Contracts, the user may need to take some expert advice, particularly in complex areas such as insurance.
In summary, the new RIBA Building Contracts offer attractive alternatives to existing contracts in that they are relatively short and easy to read, and yet contain a range of innovative features not found in other standard contracts. As such they are likely to prove a popular choice with their intended users.