How to Select a Home Extension Contract

Many home extensions are small scale & do not need a complicated or 'wordy' pre-formed standard contract.

Provided your House extension Building Designers drawings and specifications are of good quality and concise, then many home owners instruct their builders on a simple exchange of letters referring to the written quotation provided by the tendering builder.

You may need to agree additional terms within the letter such as start date, contract duration & the timing of any interim payments.

Larger or more complicated home extensions may need additional protection to both parties by using a standard form of building Contract. Many are available aimed at small domestic works such as the JCT minor works agreement.

Some other authors have produced standard building contracts and a Google search will reveal a few that may be suitable. Some are free to use while others require a fee for their copyright & use.

Some building trade professions offer a plain English standard form of Building Contact and one of the best is offered by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) by their members.

However, no matter how legalise or jargon filled any preformed standard building contract may be it is of no substitute for well prepared set of detailed plans & specification manual by your chosen house extension building designer.

It is only within those documents that the extent, level and detail of all the works required will be shown, specified or scheduled. A third party standard building contract will not make up for deficient plans and details.

In my view it is better to be armed with a concise set of clear drawings and specifications and simply engage your builder by an exchange of letters than it is to have a 'bare bones' set of basic or crude drawings with limited or deficient information attached to a standard building contract no matter how long or 'wordy' that contract may be.

The drawings & specifications prepared by your home extension building designer forms part of the formal contract documents when engaging your house extension builder so it is these documents that will give the builder the precise instructions as to what he is to supply and build.