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Difficult conversations

Working with an owner's representative who keeps changing their mind

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

At Thursday's sample review, the owner's representative sets a walnut sample on the table. It is the third change to the condominium lobby's feature wall in five weeks: oak slats in the contract, then porcelain, then stone, now walnut. The wall goes up in nine weeks, and the last two changes were never priced.

A white architectural model stands in front of plans.
Photo: Declan Sun on Unsplash

Make each change's cost visible before it is made: confirm every decision in writing that day with its price and time, and agree a freeze date after which reopening it is priced as a change. Then find out why decisions keep moving; the representative is often carrying someone else's opinion. Changing the work is usually the owner's right, so price changes instead of refusing them: the US federal changes clause, for example, lets the contracting officer change the specifications within the contract's general scope, with an equitable adjustment when a change alters cost or time.

  1. List the reversals: each decision, its date, who made it and what it has cost so far in money and days.
  2. Ask who else decides. If someone behind the representative has the last word, ask for that person at the next review, or for one named approver.
  3. Price each change promptly and confirm the choice, sample, price, time and approver in a decision record. If the contract requires proceeding before price agreement, follow the authorized direction, keep records and give required notices.
  4. Agree a freeze date for each selection, worked back from its order date, on the decisions-needed list. After it, a change is priced with anything already ordered and the delay.
  5. Make deciding easier: full-size samples in the real light, a mock-up, and no more than three options.

At the sample review

  1. You:Before we change it again: three changes so far, $2,650 in shop drawings and samples, and installation two weeks late.
  2. Owner's representative:The sales team hated the stone. I'm stuck in the middle.
  3. You:Then bring whoever decides for them next week. Walnut must be ordered by the 14th; after that, any change is priced with the cancelled order and the delay.

Common mistakes

  • Absorbing small changes to keep the peace until they add up.
  • Pricing the changes at closeout, when the owner can no longer choose.
  • Blaming the representative for decisions made above them.

What to say

Sentences that slow the changes

  1. You:"Here's what the changes have cost so far."
  2. You:"Who else needs to see this before it's final?"
  3. You:"You'll have the price and the new date today."
  4. You:"We need your answer by the 14th."
  5. You:"After that, a change is priced as a change."

Check your understanding

The representative asks you to hold the walnut order a week longer. What do you answer?

Show the answer
Check the freeze date. If a week fits before the order date, agree and confirm the new answer date in writing; if not, say what the hold costs, such as a later installation, and let them choose. The decision stays theirs, with its cost in front of them.

Sources

  1. FAR 52.243-4, ChangesU.S. General Services Administration (Acquisition.gov) · United States (federal fixed-price construction contracts; an example only — your own contract governs) · accessed

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