Bills of Quantities, Omissions and Claims: I recently received a request for advice from one of our course attendees. It related to the Bill of Quantities and later drawing issues. This topic has arisen on several occasions so I thought it worthy of a blog. The situation and query was as follows:

The Contract is a lump sum and not subject to re-measurement. The Bill of Quantities (BoQ) was prepared by the Contractor at the tender stage.

During the course of project closure, some items listed in the BoQ were omitted. This is because the items were not included on tender drawings, shop drawing or final as-built drawings.

However, the Client deducted these items as an omission at final account stage. They stated this was because the Contractor did not complete any of these billed works. The Contractor disagrees with this and asserts that he took the risk on the lump sum contract and the Bill of Quantities was merely for guidance and valuation only.

So…

What are the Contractor and Client’s entitlements under FIDIC for this kind of a situation?

What should be the stance of the Contractor on this matter?

Is the Client entitled to omit the value of the BoQ items not fulfilled by the Contractor despite it being a lump sum contract?

My reply was as follows:

This a fairly typical scenario that I have come across on several occasions and arises from the Employer/Engineer wanting both to have his cake and to eat it too.

The Devil is in the Detail…

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