Legal risk in construction projects
Construction disputes are rarely about construction. They are about notice periods, variation procedure and who carried a risk that was never priced. All of it is decided in documents signed long before the argument.
1. Land and title, read in full
The registry extract is the beginning of due diligence, not the whole of it. Encumbrances, servitudes, access rights and the history of previous transfers all bear on what can be built and financed. A defect found before purchase is a negotiation; the same defect found after is a loss.
2. Permits are an administrative process
Zoning parameters, the construction permit and each subsequent stage are administrative acts with their own appeal routes and deadlines. Treating a refusal as final is a common and expensive mistake; so is starting work on the strength of an assurance that has not been issued in writing.
Diary every administrative deadline on the day the act is served. Appeal windows in construction matters are short and are not extended for the fact that the decision arrived in August.
3. The contract chain
The development agreement, the main contract and the subcontracts have to be drafted as one set. Where they are negotiated separately, often by different people and months apart, risk allocated away at the top reappears at the bottom, uninsured and unpriced.
FIDIC forms work well, but only when the particular conditions are drafted by someone who has read the general conditions they amend.
4. Notice, variation, time
Most claims are lost on the calendar rather than on the merits. Variations instructed verbally, extensions of time claimed late and payment certificates left unchallenged all convert a good position into a bad one. The discipline is unglamorous and it decides the outcome.
5. When the claim arrives
By the time a claim is served, the record is already fixed. What remains is forum: arbitration where the contract requires it, mediation where the project must continue and the parties still have to work together on Monday. A settled dispute that keeps a project financed is usually worth more than an award.
A project under way, or a claim already served? Book an intake call with the construction team.
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