I'm a housebuilding contractor. The developer has issued what he calls a "deceleration order" to me. In other words, he says he wants me to slow down or stop work so that the completion date is six months later than the one in the contract. Presumably he wants to wait until the housing market picks up a bit. He says hell fix a new completion date and will compensate me for the costs of demobilising and remobilising again. Can he do this? He can t issue a variation order stopping you, as those only cover scope of work issues. He could issue an instruction to postpone the works if the contract was standard JCT2005 (clause 3.15; or 3.10 if it is design and build), but: a) If it's for more than the period stated in the contract particulars (two months, if unamended) the contractor can terminate after that period has expired - then he has a claim for losses, including lost profit b) Even if there is no termination, he'd have to pay you the loss and expense associated with any postponement, for example, site overheads, deferred profit, contribution to head office overheads, possible payments to subcontractors to reschedule work and so on. Still, in the current market, it might still be profitable for the developer to postpone for as long as he can and even risk a termination at some point, rather than be stuck with a load of houses he can't sell!
展开▼
