Commercial Construction Mistakes: Your Proposal Is Not Your Contract

Thankfully, you can avoid it easily – if you take the proper steps.

If you’re like most in the construction business, you probably put a lot of time and effort into your project Proposals. 

After you learn about a project, you’ll get a copy of the plans. You’ll think through the work involved and likely timeline. And you’ll run the numbers over (and over) to come up with your estimated price based on your scope of work. 

If your bid wins, you might (logically) assume that the Proposal you’ve submitted is part of the contract you’ll sign. 

But most of the time, you would be wrong. 

Unless you explicitly make your original Proposal part of the subcontract, it won’t be. 

You must ensure that your Proposal is included as an Exhibit within your contract. Otherwise, it won’t count. 

This becomes a *really* big deal if your bid specifically excludes certain elements from the scope of work. 

For example, imagine you’re an electrician. You submitted a bid for a project but excluded certain low-voltage work. If you fail to have that included in your subcontract, the customer could compel you to do it anyway – and you’d have to do so without any additional time or compensation. 

A similar thing can happen with materials. If you clarified in your bid that you intended to use a specific (less expensive and/or more available), that bid needs to be an exhibit within the contract. Otherwise, you could be forced to use a different (and perhaps more expensive) material without additional compensation. 

A: Your Proposal is part of the contract 

B: The meat of your Proposal is cut and pasted into the contract’s scope of work

C: The contract’s work is identical to your Proposal’s scope, or…

D: If the customer wants to change the scope, negotiate for the time and money you’d need to do it their way. 

If you’d like help with your commercial construction contract, fill out our contact Contact Usus form. Reference this article and you’ll get a complimentary consultation with one of our legal team members. You can also find more related information in our Guide to Avoiding Commercial Construction Contract Nightmares.