What to Do When Clients Ignore Your

Variations and Change Orders?

What can you do?

Construction projects, no matter how well they are managed, will
inevitably have delays, variations, and changes that aren’t due to
a fault of the contractor and couldn’t have been expected,
allowed for or mitigated by the contractor.

Most contract documents allow the contractor to claim the

additional time and costs resulting from these events.

Unfortunately, some clients take the approach of not

responding to contractor’s variations and change
orders
This is often because the person administering the contract
doesn’t want to raise the claim with their manager as it may
reflect poorly on their project management skills. Other clients
hope that by leaving the claim it may just go away, or that they
can take all of the claims at the end of the project, put them in
one basket and negotiate a once-off settlement with the
contractor – a contractor who at that stage of the contract will be
desperate just to get some money from their claims. Sometimes
clients don’t agree to the contractor’s claims because they, in the
meantime, are preparing a claim against the contractor which
they’ll then use to offset the contractor’s claims.

This approach is dishonest

Unfortunately, most construction contracts specify a time for the
contractor to issue a variation claim but very few specify a time
by when the client has to respond to the contractor’s claims.

Page 1 of 4
This approach is unfair to the contractor since if the claim isn’t
approved it won’t be paid, which disrupts the contractor’s cash
flow. It also leaves them in limbo not knowing if they’ll be paid at
all for the work, which means they could be facing a projected
loss, which could, in the case of large claims, have a devastating
impact on the company.

How unfair is that?

Furthermore, an unresolved extension of time claims may mean
that the contractor doesn’t complete the project within the
originally approved time period, thus allowing the client to
impose damages or penalties for the late completion. How unfair
is that?

The contractor has a legitimate extension of time claim and they

not only aren’t paid for the costs they incurred as a result of this
claim but, they are further penalized by having to pay damages –
all because the client hasn’t responded to their claim! This puts
the contractor in a quandary and they aren’t sure if they should
accelerate the work (if that’s possible), thus incurring additional
costs, but possibly completing the project within the original time
and thus avoiding penalties. Of course, the contractor hasn’t been
instructed to accelerate so they possibly won’t be paid these
acceleration costs.

It’s important if the contractor decides to accelerate to try and

meet the original contract completion date that they advise the
client in writing that they are accelerating because the client
hasn’t responded to their extension of time claim and is still
insisting that the contractor completes the project on the original
completion date. This letter should clearly state that there will be
additional costs. The contractor needs to keep a note of all the
additional costs for this acceleration and invoice the client
monthly for them.

Client’s budget may be overspent

Also, as long as claims aren’t resolved there is a risk that the
client’s budget may be overspent when the claims are finally
resolved which could result in the contractor not being paid for
the claims when they are finally agreed.
Page 2 of 4
Furthermore, often later variations are dependent on attaining a
resolution for an earlier claim. As long as the first claims aren’t
resolved contractors have to base their later claims on the
assumption that their first claims were unsuccessful. This
becomes messy and when the first claims are eventually agreed it
may require the later claims to be reworked taking the earlier
claim into account, and resubmitted, which takes time and causes
confusion.

**Contractors need to make every effort to get their client to resolve

their variation claims as soon as possible.
Obviously ensuring they have provided all of the supporting
information when the claim is first presented is essential and,
also, that all of the client’s questions are answered as speedily as
possible. It helps if a list of variation claims is included at all
project meetings with the client, showing those variation claims
which are agreed and those which are still unapproved. This
claims register is also an aid for the client so they can adequately
monitor their project budget.

When the client is unresponsive to

variations and change orders
Should the client be unresponsive to variation claims, letters
asking for a resolution need to be submitted

Request a meeting with your client’s representative. In some

instance you may be dealing with the client’s engineer or project
manager and your client may not even be aware of the
unresolved variation claims. In these instances, it may help to
bring the problem to the attention of your client and ask for a
resolution to the problem. If claims remain unresolved because
they aren’t replied to it may be necessary to follow the dispute
resolution process outlined in the contract document.

It can pay to consult an expert and get advice on the way forward.
In some countries and states, there are legal options available
and contractors need to be aware of these. Often these options

Page 3 of 4
are time-dependent and should be instituted as soon as it
becomes apparent that the client is going to ignore variation
claims.

Declaring a dispute with the client over a claim that hasn’t been
responded to, often results in a rapid response to the claim.

It should be noted that the contractor isn’t entitled to stop work

because the client hasn’t responded to a claim – to do so could
mean that the contractor is in breach of contract which could
allow the client to terminate the contract.

Don’t let variations and change orders go unresolved until the

end of the project since you risk not being paid the claim.

Has a client ignored your legitimate variation claims? What

actions did you take to get a resolution?

Page 4 of 4