Contracts, Legal Responsibilities, and Professional Ethics
This domain covers the General Conditions of Contract (شرایط عمومی پیمان, published as Nashrieh 4311) and the civil and ethical duties of the designer, supervisor and executor.
Core rules
- Contract types: lump sum (مقطوع), unit-price based on the price list (فهرست بها), and square-metre-of-floor-area contracts; each shifts quantity risk differently.
- Guarantees: advance payment guarantee, performance guarantee and retention for good performance, released progressively and finally at expiry of the defects period.
- Time and money: commencement, programme, extension of time for excusable delay, price adjustment (تعدیل) by index, and delay damages where the contractor is at fault.
- Delivery: provisional delivery, defects liability period, final delivery and settlement of accounts.
- Ethics: conflict of interest, undisclosed gifts, certifying work you did not inspect, and disclosing tender information are disciplinary and, in serious cases, criminal matters.
Worked example
Contract value 20 billion rials; the contract sets delay damages at 0.1% per day. The contractor is 20 days late with no excusable cause: 0.1% × 20 = 2% → 400 million rials. If the contract caps damages at 10% of value, the cap is 2 billion rials - not reached. If the delay had been caused by the client's late delivery of the site, the entitlement shifts to an extension of time, and the same arithmetic proves the contractor's case.
Traps
Signing a variation without a written instruction. Certifying a progress statement that includes unverified quantities. Confusing retention with a guarantee. Accepting a verbal promise to "fix it later" in place of documented non-conformance.