Question

The owner and the contractor on a school project entered into a unit-price contract. During the construction phase, the owner required the contractor to do certain minor work and materials items to be furnished for which there is no stated payment item in the contract, what shall the contractor probably do to obtain compensation for the work and required materials? Explain.

Answer 1

If there are additional works to be done by contractor, for which there is no specific item mentioned in the original contract, the contractor has two options to recover his costs for the aforesaid extra work:

1. The contractor can submit the quotation of unit rate for the extra item/s to the owner and have them approved and added to the original contract. The approval might depend on the quoted cost and if there will be any delay in the project since new items added will alter the project schedule / plan.

2. If the above option is not viable, the contractor has option to adjust the rates of his original items mensioned in original contract, so that he incorporate the cost of additional items in the unit rate of original items, so that he does not suffer a loss due to extra work done by him. The revision in rates will have to be approved by the owner as well.