We are the subcontractor on an NEC4 contract and we have been invited to price for additional works which fall outside of the scope of our original contract. We were invited to submit a quotation for the works which is circa £10k, this is reflective of our actual costs / risks associated with the works. However, the assessment provided by the main contractor has reduced the sum to circa £1k.
Although I imagine this is just a little confusion as to what is required, I am interested to know what my best course of action would be if we are confident our assessment is correct and yet the instruction is implemented at the Main Contractor’s assessed sum.
Firstly have you had an instruction from the contractor under clause 14.3 to carry out these additional works? If not then do not commence work on them, if so then unfortunately you have to carry them out and argue about the time and cost impacts later. It sounds like you’ve been dealing with clause 65 where the contractor has asked you to submit a quotation for a proposed instruction. If this is correct the contractor does not have the right to make an assessment, they can only ask for a revised quotation, or accept / not accept your quotation. If you’ve had an instruction the contractor does have the right to assess under clause 64.1 and if they’ve notified you of their assessment then the compensation event is implemented. In this event your only recourse if you disagree with their assessment is dispute resolution. In this case I’d recommend escalating to senior representatives as a first step to seeking resolution and to hopefully avoid the next step which would be adjudication.