When You Want Your Building Completed By A Deadline: How To Make It Happen

Business Blog

You often hear the public complain about how certain government projects are never completed on time. Sometimes this happens with private projects as well. When you have a private project that you want a contractor to complete by a deadline, you want to ensure that you get what you want. There are a few ways you can do that.

Surety Bonds

Surety bonds are one sure-fire way of making sure that your project is completed by the deadline you give. In this type of transaction, you would be the obligee, or the person to which the contractor is obliged to complete a job. The other roles involved include the surety, or the insurance company that provides the contractor with the insurance/surety bond to back the contract and the obligations of the contract, and the principal, which would be the construction contractor in this situation. 

The contractor purchases the surety bond/insurance that proves that he/she is dedicated to getting the job done by the required date. While it is not something any contractor wants to happen, there may be a slight chance that the contractor does not fulfill the contract he or she has with you. If your project is not completed by the specified completion date, the contractor is obligated to pay you back all the money you put toward the project, plus extra to hire another contractor to finish the job. The insurance company supplies the contractor with all of the extra funds to pay you back and avoid a lawsuit.

As such, it is nearly impossible to not get your building completed by the date you requested. The contractor wants to avoid the debt to the insurance company, and avoid getting into any legal trouble with you. That is why a surety bond is the best option for you and the contractor when you want a project completed on time.

Visit a site like https://www.nfp.com/ to learn more about surety bonds.

Contractual Agreements

A contractual agreement that specifies the details of your project and what you expect from the contractor could work too. The only drawbacks to this particular agreement is that there is not any insurance involved that would reimburse you if the contractor fails to deliver on his/her end of the deal. You would be stuck in a situation where the contractor would have to keep going until the project is complete, and you would be over your head in debt to the contractor to pay the added expenses.

You would not be able to fire the contractor and hire another one, nor would you be reimbursed either. If you choose to sue the contractor for failure to provide the services in the time constraints listed in the contract, it would probably cost you just as much as it would to pay the contractor to finish the job past the deadline. This is riskier, but it often costs less to complete the project.

Hiring Multiple Contractors

Hiring more than one contractor for the same job could work for you. You would have twice or more the manpower on the job trying to complete it. Anytime there is a shortage of workers with one contractor, the other team(s) would pick up the slack. There are some definite pluses and minuses, but the pluses could tilt in higher if the contractors you hire are all bonded with a surety bond. 

Consider hiring at least two contractors that are willing to work together and are both bonded. This puts double the workers on the task, which is especially beneficial if you need the project completed a lot sooner than expected or the project is quite large. Ask to see the contractors' surety bonds before you sign a work order with them.

1 December 2017