Communication, Documentation, and Contract Administration
Communication, Documentation, and Contract Administration
This domain tests whether you can run the paper side of a contract so that entitlement, instruction, and payment are all defensible later.
Core rules and concepts
- The contract defines a document order of precedence that resolves conflicts between agreement, conditions, specification, and drawings. Apply it explicitly.
- Distinguish the instruments: a request for information clarifies and does not change scope; a site instruction directs work; a change order carries price and time effect.
- Notice provisions are often conditions precedent - late notice can extinguish an otherwise valid claim. Confirm verbal direction in writing the same day.
- Shop-drawing review confirms conformance with design intent; it does not transfer design responsibility to the reviewer. Use the correct review status stamp.
- Minutes, daily logs, photographs, and correspondence form the contemporaneous record. Never rewrite or backdate them.
- Payment certification verifies progress against the schedule of values, applies retainage, and collects lien waivers.
- Disputes follow the contract's tiered escalation before litigation.
Worked example
A contractor states verbally that late owner-supplied equipment will cost 10 days. Entitlement depends on the notice clause and on a schedule analysis showing the equipment sits on the critical path. The correct response is written acknowledgment within the notice period, a request for a time impact analysis, and a record of the instruction. Leaving it until final account risks waiving the notice requirement and contaminating the payment certification.
Traps
Answering requests for information by informal email; treating reviewed shop drawings as a design transfer; certifying payment without verifying progress; missing contractual time bars; relying on memory instead of minutes.