When a client engages my services as quantity surveyor on a building project, one of the first documents I look at is the building contract. It is easy to underestimate how much this document matters. A construction project is fundamentally an exercise in managing risk — the risk of delay, of cost overrun, of poor workmanship, of unforeseen ground conditions, of a contractor becoming insolvent partway through. The contract is the tool that decides who carries each of those risks, and in what circumstances. Get that allocation wrong, or leave it vague, and even a well-run project can end in a costly and bitter dispute.
This is why I encourage every client, whether building a family home or a multi-million-rand commercial development, to use a recognised standard form contract rather than a bespoke document drawn up for the occasion, and to resist the temptation to amend a standard form piecemeal once it has been selected.
Risk allocation is the heart of the matter
Every building contract, however it is worded, is answering the same underlying questions. Who pays if the site turns out to have unexpected rock or unstable soil? Who bears the cost if the architect issues a late instruction that delays the works? What happens if the price of steel or timber spikes mid-project? Who is responsible if a subcontractor's defective work is only discovered after practical completion? A contract that answers these questions clearly, fairly, and in a way both parties understand before they sign, is worth far more than one that is silent, ambiguous, or one-sided.
Risk that is properly allocated tends to be risk that is properly priced. A contractor who knows exactly what they are and are not responsible for can price the work accurately and manage it accordingly. A contractor faced with vague or unfavourable risk terms will either price defensively, inflating the tender to cover the uncertainty, or, worse, accept the risk without pricing it properly and then dispute it later when the risk materialises. Neither outcome serves the client well.
The trouble with bespoke contracts and ad hoc amendments
I regularly see two versions of the same mistake. The first is a bespoke contract, often drafted by a lawyer with limited construction experience, or adapted from a template used for an entirely different type of agreement. On the surface it may look thorough, sometimes even longer and more detailed than a standard form, but it has not been tested against the countless disputes, court judgments, and edge cases that shape an established industry contract. Clauses that look reasonable in isolation can interact badly with each other, leave gaps around common construction scenarios, or fail to anticipate how a delay, variation, or extension of time claim actually plays out on site.
The second, more common mistake is taking a recognised standard form and then amending it, sometimes extensively, through a schedule of amendments, deleted clauses, or hand-written changes to the contract data. It is entirely normal, and often necessary, to complete the contract data or make limited, well-considered amendments to suit a specific project. The problem arises when amendments are made without a full appreciation of how the rest of the contract is structured. Standard form contracts are internally consistent documents: a change to one clause can quietly undermine the operation of another, several pages away, that was relying on it. I have seen amendments intended to protect the employer's position end up doing the opposite, simply because the knock-on effect on a related clause was not considered. Once a dispute arises, it is precisely these amended or bespoke clauses that come under the most scrutiny, and precisely where the most expensive arguments tend to happen.
A brief example illustrates the point. Consider a project where the employer's advisors delete the standard extension-of-time clause and replace it with a shorter, harsher version intended to protect the completion date, without adjusting the related clauses dealing with penalties, practical completion, and the contractor's right to claim for prolongation costs. On paper, the amendment looks like it strengthens the employer's position. In practice, when a genuine delay occurs, whether caused by exceptionally adverse weather, an instruction issued late by the design team, or a shortage of imported materials, the contractor may have little incentive to cooperate in mitigating the delay, because the amended clause has left them with no fair mechanism to recover the additional time or cost they are entitled to. What began as an attempt to tighten the contract ends up souring the working relationship on site, and frequently ends in a dispute that costs both parties far more, in time and in money, than the risk it was trying to avoid.
Why standard forms work: they have been stress-tested
The reason I favour standard form contracts is simple: they have been stress-tested in a way no bespoke document can match. The major standard forms used in the construction industry are drafted and periodically revised by committees made up of architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, contractors, and legal specialists, representing both sides of the employer and contractor relationship, not just one. Their wording has been argued over in negotiation, tested in arbitration and litigation, and refined edition after edition in response to disputes that have actually occurred on real projects. When an ambiguity is identified, it gets fixed in the next edition, for the benefit of every project that uses that form afterwards.
The result is a contract that, on balance, allocates risk to the party best placed to manage it, rather than to whichever party had less bargaining power or a less experienced advisor at the negotiation table. That is not to say standard forms are without their critics, or that every edition gets everything right — no contract is perfect, and reasonable professionals can disagree about specific clauses. But as a starting point, a widely used, well-established standard form gives both employer and contractor a shared, predictable framework, interpreted consistently by the industry, the courts, and adjudicators. That predictability itself reduces the likelihood of a dispute even arising.
Standard forms commonly used in South Africa
In South Africa, the two standard forms I encounter most often on building projects are the JBCC and the NEC suite of contracts.
The JBCC, published by the Joint Building Contracts Committee, is the traditional choice for building works in South Africa, and has been in use since 1991, with the current Principal Building Agreement now in its 6.2 edition. It is drafted by a committee representing architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, and contractors, which is precisely why it tends to produce a workable, balanced result: every major role on a project had a hand in shaping it. The JBCC suits the traditional procurement route, where the employer appoints a separate design team and the contractor is responsible for construction only, and it includes established mechanisms for extensions of time, valuations, penalties, and dispute resolution, including adjudication.
The NEC suite, the New Engineering Contract, now in its fourth edition (NEC4), takes a different philosophical approach. Rather than focusing primarily on the consequences of failure, NEC contracts are built around proactive project management: early warning notices when a risk is identified, and a structured compensation event procedure for pricing and agreeing the effect of changes as they arise, rather than waiting to argue about them at the end. In South Africa, the Construction Industry Development Board has promoted NEC as the preferred contract family for public sector work, and it is increasingly seen on larger private and infrastructure projects too. Where JBCC and NEC agree is on the importance of a clear, structured mechanism for resolving disagreements quickly — both include adjudication as a fast, relatively low-cost first step, keeping disputes from escalating into lengthy and expensive arbitration or litigation.
What this means for you as a client
If you are about to embark on a building project, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Choose a recognised standard form suited to your project and procurement route, rather than a bespoke agreement. If amendments are genuinely necessary, keep them to a minimum, and have them reviewed by someone who understands not just the clause being changed, but how it interacts with the rest of the document. And appoint a quantity surveyor or contract administrator early enough in the process to advise on the contract itself, not just the cost plan — the two are far more closely linked than most clients expect.
A well-chosen, properly administered standard form contract will not prevent every disagreement on a construction project. But it gives both parties a fair, predictable, and well-tested framework for resolving those disagreements when they arise, which is very often the difference between a project that finishes on reasonably good terms and one that ends up in a dispute nobody wanted.