{"id":887503,"date":"2016-03-09T07:37:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T14:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/?p=887503"},"modified":"2016-03-08T14:07:56","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T21:07:56","slug":"addenda-to-construction-contract-can-be-an-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myconstructionexpert.com\/blog\/addenda-to-construction-contract-can-be-an-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Addenda to Construction Contract Can Be an Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher G. Hill | Construction Law Musings | March 2, 2016<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all been there.\u00a0 Your client either has a well drafted standard subcontract (with any luck in consultation with an experienced construction attorney) that it presents to its subcontractors and suppliers or your client is presented with a construction contract<\/a> that has some provisions that it would prefer were either different or gone altogether.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the first of these scenarios, your client often gets push back from a subcontractor to change certain provisions.\u00a0 Such a response is not necessarily a bad thing depending on the provisions that the potential subcontractor may have.\u00a0 The construction contract<\/a> documents will govern the way that the project moves forward and will be strictly enforced in Virginia and elsewhere so some early give and take is not unusual or unwanted.<\/p>\n

In the second scenario, your client is likely to be reading a fairly one sided document.\u00a0 The General Contractor has drafted the contract and is \u201cnorth\u201d of your client in the payment chain.\u00a0 Like it or not, they will in most instances leave it to you and your attorney to root out the particularly egregious on sided terms and seek to negotiate them to some sort of equality.<\/p>\n

In and of themselves, I see nothing wrong with this sort of early give and take.\u00a0 Early \u201cnitpicking\u201d of these contracts is what I do and what you should do before you sign a contract<\/em>.\u00a0 However, one way that changes are often made is by addendum.\u00a0 Such a method can be, as they say, \u201cfraught with peril.\u201d\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because unless very<\/em> carefully drafted, such addenda often, if not always, provide grey area.\u00a0 While I as a construction lawyer personally love grey area (it provides wiggle room and areas for argument that make me money), contractors and subcontractors should avoid it because when lawyers get to argue, profit margins wane.<\/p>\n

The reason that such grey area can be caused by this method of contract revision is that in many cases, the addendum is not specific as to what particular clauses and phrases of the original contract are being changed.\u00a0 They often simply state a general proposition that seeks to alter certain obligations in the contract without actually stating specific language that is to be altered or they act as if a whole provision is modified, but that may or may not be the case.\u00a0 I know as a construction attorney, I see such general changes often.<\/p>\n

What is a better practice?\u00a0 In my mind…<\/p>\n

To finish reading this article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christopher G. Hill | Construction Law Musings | March 2, 2016 We\u2019ve all been there.\u00a0 Your client either has a well drafted standard subcontract (with any luck in consultation with an experienced construction attorney) that it presents to its subcontractors and suppliers or your client is presented with a construction contract that has some provisions… Continue reading Addenda to Construction Contract Can Be an Issue<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-887503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-construction-contracts","tag-construction-contracts-2","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nAddenda to Construction Contract Can Be an Issue - 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