This tip looks at provisional allowances and the big trap with them.
Provisional allowances are a common thing and useful way to document the price of things into the tender or contract when these things are not fully resolved in the design.
Provisional allowances often come in the form of ‘prime costs’ and ‘provisional sums’.
While they are useful, this usefulness can quickly turn to liability when they are misused. The greatest misuse is assuming a contractor’s definition of them matches your definition of them.
Just documenting a thing as a ‘prime cost’ or a ‘provisional sum’ is not enough. The terms need to be documented in the Specification with a thorough definition of these terms.
It is not only the contractor who has a different definition of them, but also most players in the building industry who each have a different definition of them.
The ArchiAssist Specification does not use the terms ‘prime cost’ or ‘provisional sum’, instead it uses ‘provisional allowance’ accompanied by the EACH item’s price allowance and a thorough description of EACH item (including who orders it and who is responsible for delivery, unloading, on-site storage, and installation) thereby removing the item completely from the terms ‘prime cost’ and ‘provisional sum’ trap.
