Construction Change Order

How to use this Construction Change Order in US

No statewide home improvement rule requiring a written change order was confirmed for your state, so the contract's own change clause and the general law of contracts decide the question (Common law of contracts; state statute of frauds). A change order is not a new contract: it names the original contract and its date, describes exactly what changes, prices the change, and says what it does to the completion date. Everything the contract said before stays in force unless this document changes it.

Price the change the way the owner can check it. Line items — quantity times unit price, labour and materials separated — are what survive a dispute; a lump sum belongs on small, obvious work. Say plainly whether the amount is added to the contract or deducted from it, then carry the arithmetic all the way through: original contract sum, plus the net of every earlier change order, plus or minus this one, equals the revised contract sum. That last number is the only price that should appear on the next invoice, on the lender's draw request and in any lien claim.

Deal with time and money in the same document. Write the schedule effect in whole days, even when it is zero — leave it blank and the original completion date usually still binds, which is how a contractor ends up late because of a change the owner asked for. On payment, no statutory limit was confirmed for your state, so the contract governs; billing the change as the changed work is performed is the practice that keeps both sides out of trouble. A deposit for special-order or custom material is the one sensible exception.

Sign before the changed work starts, and give the owner a copy the same day. Signing first is what makes the order provable: the file shows the price was agreed before anyone swung a hammer, not negotiated afterwards.. Keep the signed order with the contract, the invoices and the lien waivers — together they are the whole story of what the job cost.