Contract Administration

What is JCT contract administration?

A building contract only protects you if someone administers it. The panel's RICS contract administrators run JCT and other standard-form contracts from signature to final certificate — valuing the works, certifying payments, managing variations and holding both parties to what was agreed.

What a contract administrator does

• Pre-contract — preparing the specification and schedule of works, inviting tenders, analysing returns and reporting with a recommendation.
• Contract set-up — completing the JCT contract (Minor Works or Intermediate for most domestic and small commercial projects) so payment terms, programme and liquidated damages are defined before work starts.
• During the works — site inspections, valuing work done, issuing interim certificates, instructing and pricing variations, and dealing with extensions of time properly rather than informally.
• Completion — certifying practical completion, managing the rectification period and defects list, checking the final account and issuing the final certificate.

Which JCT contract suits your project?

The JCT family is graduated, and choosing the right form matters because the payment machinery, insurance provisions and damages regime differ between them:

• JCT Minor Works Building Contract — the workhorse for straightforward domestic renovations, extensions and small commercial works with a single contractor and a short programme.
• JCT Intermediate Building Contract — larger or more involved projects that need named specialists, sectional completion or fuller control provisions.
• JCT Standard Building Contract — major works with complex design and procurement requirements.
• JCT Design and Build Contract — where the contractor takes design responsibility; the employer-side role there is the employer's agent rather than a contract administrator.

Part of the pre-contract service is advising which form fits your project — and resisting a contractor's preferred alternative where it quietly shifts risk to you.

Certificates the contract administrator issues

Certificates are the contract's payment and completion machinery, and each one carries consequences:

• Interim certificates — the contractor's entitlement to payment, based on the value of work properly executed, not the invoice submitted.
• Practical completion certificate — ends the contractor's possession of the site, starts the rectification period, releases half the retention and stops liquidated damages accruing.
• Non-completion certificate — the formal step that preserves the employer's right to deduct liquidated damages when the contractor overruns.
• Certificate of making good — confirms the rectification-period defects have been dealt with.
• Final certificate — closes the account once the final account has been checked and agreed.

Issued late, early or informally, any of these can cost the employer real money — which is why the role exists.

Variations, extensions of time and delay

Most domestic building disputes trace back to informality: a change agreed verbally on site, a delay never recorded, a “day rate” that was never defined. The contract administrator prices variations before the work is done, records progress at every inspection, and assesses extension-of-time claims against evidence rather than assertion — which keeps liquidated damages enforceable and the final account arguable from documents instead of memory. The discipline is unglamorous; its absence is what most contested final accounts have in common.

Why the role is impartial — and why that helps you

When certifying, the contract administrator acts fairly between employer and contractor rather than as the employer's advocate. That independence is precisely what makes the certificates robust: contractors accept them, disputes are rarer, and when a project does turn contentious the paper trail stands up. Where matters escalate, the same panel provides construction expert witness evidence. For works to shared walls, party wall compliance is co-ordinated alongside the contract.

When to appoint a contract administrator

Ideally before tender: the specification and schedule of works determine everything downstream, and a contract administrator appointed to write them gets you comparable tenders and a contract sum that means something. Appointment mid-project is also possible — typically where payments have drifted ahead of the work done or completion is being disputed — though the options narrow once the contract machinery has been ignored for months. And for small works below the level where a formal contract earns its keep, we will say so and suggest standalone site inspections instead.

Fees and instruction

Fixed or percentage fees agreed before appointment, scaled to project value and inspection frequency. Contract administration pairs naturally with full construction project management — or can be instructed alone where the design is already complete.

Instruct an RICS contract administrator →