5 questions to ask before signing a construction contract

A construction contract is easy to skim and hard to fully absorb, especially when you are eager to get a project moving. A handful of specific questions, asked before you sign rather than after something goes wrong, tell you more about what you are actually agreeing to than the contract's general language usually does on its own.

1. How are change orders priced and approved?

Every project ends up with at least some change work, and the contract should spell out exactly how that gets priced, who has to approve it, and when. If the answer is vague, or if pricing for change work is left to be determined later without a stated method, that is a gap worth closing before you sign, not a detail to work out once you are already relying on the relationship being fair.

2. What actually triggers a schedule extension?

Some delays are the owner's own decisions arriving late; some are the contractor's; some are field conditions or weather nobody controls. The contract should be clear about which category of delay entitles the contractor to a schedule extension and which does not, so you are not negotiating that definition for the first time in the middle of an actual delay.

3. What is included, and what is an allowance or exclusion?

A proposal number is only as meaningful as what it actually includes. Ask specifically what is covered under the base price versus what is an allowance, a placeholder that will be trued up later, or an outright exclusion that is not in the number at all. Two bids that look close on the surface can carry very different real costs once you know what each one actually includes.

4. What is the payment schedule tied to?

Payments tied to actual project milestones, a percentage of work genuinely completed, give you a clearer picture of what you are paying for at each draw than a payment schedule based purely on the calendar. Understanding this ahead of time also helps you plan cash flow around the project realistically instead of being surprised by a draw request.

5. Who is actually accountable for the work, and can they prove it?

Ask which trades the contractor self-performs versus subcontracts, and ask for actual proof of licensing and insurance rather than a verbal assurance. A contractor who self-performs the trades most critical to your schedule, and who produces documentation without hesitation, gives you a clearer picture of who is accountable if something on the job does not go as planned.

None of these questions are adversarial. A contractor who has nothing to hide answers all five clearly and without friction, and a contract that already answers them plainly before you ask is usually a good sign on its own.

Read the whole document, not just the price

It is easy to focus almost entirely on the number at the top of a proposal and treat the contract language itself as boilerplate to sign quickly. The number only means what the contract says it means, and the answers to these five questions usually live in the contract's actual terms, not in a separate conversation you had that never made it into writing. If an answer you were given verbally does not appear anywhere in the document, ask for it to be added before you sign.

It is fine to take your time

A contractor who is worth signing with will not pressure you to sign before you have had a real chance to read the document and get these five answers in writing. Feeling rushed to sign, or being told there is no time to review the contract closely, is itself worth treating as information about how the rest of the relationship is likely to go once construction is underway.

We are a licensed and insured general contractor with over 20 years of combined experience, and we are glad to walk through every one of these questions before you sign anything with us or with anyone else.