Contract Selection & Review
Risk mitigationFixed FeeFor Subcontractors & Main Contractors10 working days
I read the contract you have been offered before you sign it, tell you in plain English what it actually commits you to, and hand you the fixes already drafted, from amendment schedule to tracked redline and covering letter. The cheapest place to fix a bad clause is the week before signature, when the other side still needs you to sign.
The problem
A contract arrives, often an amended standard form, and the pressure is to sign and start, so reading forty pages of amendments waits. The terms are then met for the first time on the day they are used against you: the payment period longer than you priced, the amendment that made you carry a risk you never saw, the damages clause that runs faster than the programme allows. Before signature, when a request to move a clause is a negotiation rather than a grievance, is when reading the document still changes something.
The solution
I read the whole contract as a commercial document, not a legal one: the payment mechanism and its dates, the amendments measured against the form they started from, programme obligations, damages and set-off, the variation and notice machinery, retention and any bonds or warranties. The output is a plain-English report that says, clause by clause, what you are committing to and where it will hurt, plus every fix drafted ready to send: the schedule of amendments with a fallback for each, a tracked redline and clean amended copy, a negotiation matrix and a covering letter to open the exchange.
What you receive
You sign knowing exactly what the contract does, having asked for the changes that mattered and consciously accepted the ones you chose to live with. The report and the drafted pack - the amendment schedule, the redline and clean copy, the negotiation matrix and the covering letter - become the job's founding record, so if a clause is ever tested later, the file already shows you understood it and dealt with it at the time. And the terms you priced against are the terms you work under, because the gaps were closed before your name went on the page.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: ten working days.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
Need it faster? Ask on the first call: an express turnaround is quoted in writing where the diary allows it.
Illustrative worked example
Every instruction closes with a written report. This is the format, on a worked example: See a worked example (PDF)
How it works
You tell me about the job and the contract
One call on the package, the form you have been offered and how soon they want it signed. The first conversation is free and commits you to nothing.
Unsigned Confirmed First
You confirm in writing that the contract is unsigned, and day one checks for any notice period already running; a signed contract needs a different review.
You send me the contract as offered
The list below lets the review run on the actual document and the deal you thought you were pricing, not on the standard form in the abstract.
- A
The draft contract as offered, with its revision and date
EssentialWithout it: There is no document to review, so nothing in this service can start
Where to find it: The tender return email, the employer's or main contractor's order, or the buying folder for the package.
Why I need it: The document that governs everything, and the revision the whole pack is built against
- B
Every schedule, appendix and annexe
ImportantWithout it: Terms that live in a schedule rather than the front end, often where the money is, go unreviewed
Where to find it: The tender return email, the employer's or main contractor's order, or the buying folder for the package.
Why I need it: The terms are rarely all in the front end
- C
The schedule of amendments
EssentialWithout it: The review cannot say where the risk has actually been moved, which is the point of the exercise
Where to find it: The tender return email, the employer's or main contractor's order, or the buying folder for the package.
Why I need it: Where the risk is usually moved
Quality: everything the contract's own list of documents names.
- D
The order or appointment
ImportantWithout it: Anything the order or purchase order adds or changes sits outside the review entirely
Where to find it: Your own purchase order system, or the order email that was actually sent.
Why I need it: What was actually placed
- E
Correspondence forming the deal
ImportantWithout it: An agreement made before signing but left out of the contract may go unnoticed, even though you believe it is included
Where to find it: The email thread with whoever you dealt with before signing, or your own notes of any call, in date order.
Why I need it: What has been agreed so far, ahead of signature
- F
The programme referred to
ImportantWithout it: The payment cycle and notice periods are worked from the contract's dates alone, with nothing to attach them to on the ground
Where to find it: The estimator's file, the tender build-up, or simply a short note from whoever priced it.
Why I need it: The dates the terms attach to
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I read the whole contract commercially
Payment, programme, damages, variation and notice machinery, retention and any bonds, with the amendments measured against the form they changed.
I write the plain-English report
Clause by clause, what you are committing to and where it will hurt, written to be read in one sitting by the person who has to decide.
I build the schedule of amendments
The specific changes worth asking for, each with a fallback position, so you walk into the negotiation off a prepared list.
I draft the pack that carries them
A tracked redline of the contract, a clean amended copy, a clause by clause negotiation matrix and a covering letter, so the asking starts with documents rather than a list of complaints.
Redline Matches Review
The marked-up contract is cross-checked both ways against the amendment schedule, so nothing appears in the redline that the review did not decide.
You decide what to ask for and what to accept
We talk the report through, you set your own risk appetite, and the drafted pack becomes your opening exchange in the negotiation ahead.
Decisions On Record
Your decision on every item is recorded in writing, the consequence restated beside anything you knowingly accept, so the file shows you chose with open eyes.
I hand over the job's founding record
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
Once you know what to ask for, taking it through the back-and-forth is Contract Clause Negotiation Support, which keeps the fallback positions consistent across the rounds. This review is the pre-signature read; once a contract is already signed and the job is running on it, the same danger-hunt is the Signed Contract Review on the claims side, delivered as a risk map and working rules instead of amendments.