Assignment Brief

Introduction

Create a professional contractor's consultant report and reference appropriately, relating to the contractual solutions available to the contractor on various projects they run.

Scenario

You are employed as a consultant by a medium-sized contractor specialised in the construction of warehouses, industrial units and office buildings. Your employer asked you to give them some advice on construction law and regulations, examine issues faced on two projects, and produce a report advising them on the way forward.

Tasks

For this report, you need to complete the following tasks.

Construction Law and Regulations

Tasks

1. Your employer wants to know more about Section 108 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. Your employer understands that the Construction Act 1996 confers the right to adjudication where a dispute relating to a qualifying construction contract exists and also sets out the minimum requirements for the contract provisions in respect of adjudication to comply with the Act.

Your employer asked you to:

Review and explain the nature of those requirements.

1. Your employer instructed you to examine the law which applies to construction projects in respect of health, safety and welfare.

Your task is to compare and contrast the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the CDM Regulations 2015, identifying the purpose of both and critically appraising the relevance of the two statutory provisions to construction projects (Office Building Project and Warehouse and Offices Project).

Office Building Project

Your employer is contracted to build an office building. This project commenced two months ago. The work is proceeding well. Last month the client's QS prepared an interim valuation which was agreed and certified by the contract administrator a few days later within the terms of the contract.

As a result of a series of administrative errors, your employer, the contractor, has not received payment for valuation number one, which was due a week ago.

Task

Advise your employer on the obligations of the client in terms of payment. Assess the remedies under the contract which are available to your employer in this situation. Suggest with justification the most appropriate course of action.

Note: The contract is a standard form of contract. In your answer, you are free to assume whether the contract is JCT16 or NEC4.

Warehouse and Offices Project

They have won a contract to construct a warehouse and offices for a freight delivery company.

A dispute has arisen concerning some of the load test results for the piling works, a small number of which have not met design requirements. Your team are sure this work is in accordance with the specification, but the client's representatives have insisted that they have witnessed faulty workmanship and want to find a solution urgently.

An interim valuation has recently been certified and will be due for payment in ten days, however the client is insisting that no further payments should be made until this matter is dealt with.

The contract is a standard form of contract, which provides for both adjudication AND arbitration and the Project Manager has suggested that both parties resort to arbitration and waive their right to adjudication.

Task

Briefly outlining the various problems raised by this situation and the means by which the contract documentation deals with them. Recommend the procedures that should be adopted by the parties to provide a solution.

Note: In your answer, you are free to assume whether the contract is JCT16 or NEC4.

Note

To complete the tasks above, you may need to make some assumptions - please highlight these in your report.