The project
The redevelopment of a central city fuel station site. The station was decommissioned and the site redeveloped with a new build block of thirteen flats, with parking and hard and soft landscaping, on contaminated and poor ground. The contract sum was around £2.7 million, administered by Avalon from tender documentation through to the final certificate.
The brief
On a contract of this size, the employer’s exposure is managed or lost in the administration: what gets certified, what gets rejected, how variations are valued and how retention is held. On a brownfield site, where the ground can change the scope, the client needed the contract run with the same rigour at valuation thirty one as at valuation one.
What we did
- Priced baselineThe works fully specified and tendered on a detailed schedule of works.
- Thirty one valuationsEach a physical assessment of work properly executed, not a rubber stamp on an application.
- Variations on meritSome certified in full, some in part where work was part complete, some at nil where certification was not yet justified.
- Retention managedHeld at the contractual rate and managed correctly through practical completion, which was formally certified.
- Final certificateThe account closed with the certificates in sequence.
The RICS guidance
Contract administration is covered by the RICS Black Book, including Interim valuations and payment, Valuing change, Retention and Final account procedures, with the works let on a JCT standard form.
That record is the employer’s protection during the works and their evidence after them.
The outcome
A blighted fuel station site turned into thirteen new homes, and a contract that closed with a complete administrative record: specification, tender, thirty one valuations, an itemised variation account and the certificates in sequence.
Read more about our Contract Administration service.
