Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
conflict with clause 5.9. In summary, it appears that under the RIBA Standard Conditions,
anarchitectisentitledtoclaimadditionalfeesforservicesinconnectionwithextensionsof
time and forming an opinion about whether regular progress is likely to be affected by one
of the relevant matters causing loss and/or expense, but not for the actual ascertainment of
the resultant payment to the contractor. This is an awkward conclusion dependent on the
reading of various parts of the appointment documents. It would be useful for the RIBA to
lookintoamendingthistomakewhatisintendedmuchclearer.Ideally,thearchitectshould
be able to claim additional fees for additional work the extent of which cannot be foreseen.
The Concise Conditions are simpler, as the name suggests. Although a number of activ-
ities are stated as being included in the contract administrator's duties, dealing with the
contractor's claims is not one of them. Dealing with contractor's claims is one of the addi-
tional services that must be specifically added to the small project services, which comes
with the Concise Conditions. Clause 5.5 permits the architect to charge additional fees if
the architect 'is involved in extra work or incurs extra expense for reasons beyond the Ar-
chitect's reasonable control' because performance of the Services is delayed, disrupted or
prolonged;'extrawork'mustincludedealingwithcontractor'sclaims.Itistobenotedthat
the phrase 'contractor's claims' is broad enough to cover extensions of time and addition-
al preliminaries in relation to variations as well as loss and/or expense. Under the Concise
Conditions, the architect can claim for carrying out ascertainment.
Architects claiming additional fees are well advised to notify the client as soon as it be-
comes clear that extra fees will be involved, and detailed timesheets should be kept setting
out exactly what the architect does in relation to the claim. The timesheets of many archi-
tects are totally inadequate as a record of what was actually done.
