When the cost of building your home changes midway

Lloyd Waweru’s Juja farm house looks  perfect. Anyone would think he must have had it all figured out when he set out constructing it.

“Before this house was completed, I went through a rough time with my contractor whom I entrusted with the work owing to my busy schedule at work,” says Waweru, who owns a consultancy firm. He says that before he gave a go ahead after approaching a contractor about the job, he explained to the contractor what was required and they agreed to work with a figure close to Sh4.5 million for the entire work for the three bedroom mansion.

However, when it came into doing the basement finishes, trouble reared its head. The contractor approached him with a new invoice.

This marked a series of conflicts and later on, it led to their break-up with Waweru incurring extra cost to do the house himself.

Cost variation is at the centre of many fall-outs between clients and contractors. For a long time, the word contractor was thought to belong to big projects. Or to only make sense for those with truck loads of money to pay a firm to oversee their construction projects.

Today, however, more people are using contractors to put up their homes.

Going are the days of using relatives or taking time out of your other engagements to supervise the construction of your home.

With this change comes new challenges as individual homeowners are forced to understand the world of contractors and what avenues are open to them in the case of a problem.

Astral Limited director Kibe Mwangi, says that contracts determine how cost variation cases are handled but without one, someone can go nowhere.

“Some clients insist on fixed contracts. If there is any change in pricing of materials under this contract, thus, a cost variation arising in the middle of the construction project, there is nothing a contractor can do other than continuing with the project,” says Mwangi.

Mwangi says that depending on the type of the contract, there is always reprieve for both parties. For instance, a contractor should look out for fluctuation clauses that can cushion them from cost variation conflicts with clients.

“If there is any change in terms of projects costs, the contractor should present a valuation case to the client. If the client approves the change, they should go ahead with the changes but if the clients does not approve, then they should work with what they have,” he says.

Andrew Kigotho, a quantity surveyor and a senior project manager with CPMC limited, a project management consultancy firm, points out that in any construction project, a quantity surveyor does cost valuation and professionally, they should give the contractor an estimate of how much the project will cost based on their professional assessment. This includes the cost of hiring any subcontractor, the price of materials, and any other labour involved.

He adds that for the client to avoid cost variation cases with contractors, they should first understand quotes and projects estimates from a contractor.

“Before signing a contract a client should understand that before getting a quote they should have approved the estimate since accepting a quote from a contractor signals they have already entered into a contract since it holds the exact amount that a particular task will cost,” says Kigotho.

He says that if a contractor realises that there is a problem and a possibility of a cost hike in the process of completing their job, they should notify the homeowner and explain the possible budgetary changes with an explanation of why the cost was hiked although this rarely happens due to the miscellaneous clause that cautions the contractor against such happenings.

“Clients should check out for the miscellaneous clause closely of which at standard rates, it should be within the range of 5 to 10 per cent and if it is there, there is no way a contractor will come to ask for more,” says Kigotho.