TAG

Construction contracts

Change orders, scope, and schedule documentation.

PROP-03 · 01

Construction Change Orders: Scope, Price, Schedule, and Documentation

9 MIN · PROP

Most construction payment fights are not about whether the work was done. They are about whether the paperwork that authorized it exists. This brief maps the sequence that decides those claims.

Work changes three ways: a signed change order, a unilateral directive the contractor must follow while price is unresolved, and conduct that changes the work without paper.
A constructive change is extra or different work compelled by owner conduct rather than a formal order; it is provable, but only with contemporaneous documentation.
Standard general conditions, including the AIA A201 family, impose short written-notice periods for claims — commonly measured in days from the triggering event.

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PROP-08 · 02

Payment Bonds and Miller Act Claims on Public Projects

8 MIN · PROP

Public property cannot be liened, so the payment bond is the unpaid contractor's security. This brief sets out who it covers, the two deadlines that control, and where state versions diverge.

Federal property cannot be encumbered by a mechanics' lien, so the Miller Act payment bond is the substitute security for those who furnish labour or materials.
A claimant without a direct contract with the prime must give written notice within 90 days of its last labour or material, or the bond claim is lost.
Every Miller Act suit must be filed within one year of the claimant's last labour or material, in the federal district where the contract was performed.

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PROP-09 · 03

Operating Expense Reconciliation: Auditing a Commercial Landlord's Charges

8 MIN · PROP

A reconciliation statement is an arithmetic conclusion drawn from a lease. This brief works backwards from the invoice to the clauses that produced it, and to the audit clock that closes the argument.

Operating expense disputes are lease-interpretation disputes: the inclusion list, the exclusion list, the pro rata share definition, and the cap language decide the answer.
Gross-up provisions adjust variable expenses to an assumed occupancy level; applied to a comparison year but not the base year, they inflate the pass-through.
Caps only bite if the lease says they are cumulative and compounding, and most caps exclude taxes, insurance and utilities as non-controllable expenses.

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