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Final accounts and construction claims
The final account is the last word on what the project cost. I prepare it from the records, agree it with the other side and close it, so nothing is left open after the keys are handed over.
By Edwin, quantity surveyor, registered with IQSK. 10 years in practice. Fixed fee agreed in writing.
What the final account is
A statement that starts with the contract sum and ends with the final amount payable. In between it adjusts for everything that changed: variations added and omitted, provisional sums replaced by actual cost, re-measured work, fluctuations where the contract allows them, and any claims agreed.
If valuations and variations were kept in order during the build, the final account is mostly a matter of adding up. If they were not, it is a reconstruction from site diaries, instructions, photographs and receipts. I do both.
Claims
A claim is a request for more time or more money for something the contract says the other party is responsible for.
- Extension of time: the completion date moves because of a delay the contractor did not cause
- Loss and expense: the contractor's extra cost of being on site longer or working out of sequence
- Client's claims: liquidated damages for late completion, or the cost of putting right defective work
A claim succeeds on records. Each one needs the event, the contract clause it falls under, the notice given at the time, the effect on the programme and the cost that followed. I prepare claims for contractors and assess them for clients, though never both on the same contract.
Stalled and disputed projects
Where a project has stopped, the first question is what has been built and what has been paid. I carry out a valuation of the work in place, compare it with payments made, and set out the position in a report both sides can test. That report is usually what gets the parties talking again, and it is the document an adjudicator, arbitrator or court will want if they do not.
Closing out
- Final measurement of any work that was provisional
- A schedule of all variations with their agreed values
- The statement of final account, signed by both parties
- Release of retention at practical completion and at the end of the defects liability period
- A complete file: contract, instructions, valuations, certificates and the final account
Questions clients ask
The project finished a year ago and the account was never agreed. Can it still be done?
Yes. It is slower because the records have to be gathered, but an account can be prepared from what exists and put to the other side for agreement.
Can you act as an expert in a dispute?
I can prepare an independent valuation or quantum report. Tell me the forum and the stage the dispute has reached.
Who pays for the final account?
On a private contract the client normally pays their own quantity surveyor. A contractor who wants their own account prepared pays for that separately.
Get a fixed-fee quote
Send your drawings for final accounts and claims. You get a written scope, a fixed fee and a delivery date within two working days. No charge and no obligation for the quote.