Is a verbal site instruction a valid variation?

It may bind you in practice even where the contract requires writing, which is exactly the problem. The safe habit is to confirm every instruction in writing the same day, naming what changes, who instructed it and what it is expected to cost, so that the record exists before anybody needs it.

Should a variation be priced before or after the work?

Before, wherever the information allows. A variation priced after the work is done is a negotiation in which one side has already spent the money, and the other side has already received the benefit. Where urgency genuinely prevents pricing first, agree the basis of pricing first instead.

How many variations is too many?

There is no correct count, and counting is the wrong measure. Track the value as a percentage of the contract sum instead. A build at three per cent is normal, a build at fifteen per cent is a different building from the one that was priced, and the second is worth knowing about in month four rather than at handover.

Who can issue a variation?

Whoever the contract names, which is usually the architect or the employer's representative rather than the employer personally or anyone who happens to visit the site. Name that person in writing at the start and tell the contractor that instructions from anyone else are not instructions.

Variation order

Also called: VO · change order · site instruction · variation · architect's instruction

A documented instruction to change the scope of construction works after the contract is signed, carrying its own cost and time consequence.

A variation is any change to what was agreed: an extra window, a different floor finish, a wall moved, a specification upgraded, a room enlarged. On every build there are some. On a badly run build there are dozens, and nobody knows what they add up to until it is far too late to decide differently.

A variation order is the instruction written down.

What a valid one names

What changes, described in enough detail to price.
Who instructed it, and whether they had the authority to. A verbal instruction from somebody without authority is a dispute waiting for a quiet month.
The cost effect, agreed before the work happens wherever that is possible.
The time effect, because two extra weeks has a cost of its own in preliminaries and may interact with liquidated damages.

What a variation actually costs

The commonest underestimate is treating the cost as the price of the new work. It is four things:

The new work. Materials, labour, plant.

The abandoned work. The wall already built, the slab already poured, the tiles already cut to the old dimension. Somebody paid for that, and moving on does not unpay for it.

Demolition and making good. Removing what is being replaced is work somebody does and material somebody disposes of.

The knock-on. A moved wall shifts a window, a door, an electrical run, a section of roof. This is the single most common reason a variation is cheaper on the instruction than on the invoice.

The number that prevents the problem

Contract sum plus every approved variation to date, expressed both in shillings and as a percentage of the contract sum.

Two disciplines make it work, and neither is difficult.

It is reviewed out loud at every site meeting, by both sides. A list nobody reads is a diary, not a control.

It is expressed as a percentage. "KES 640,000 of variations" means nothing on its own. "Eleven per cent above contract" means something to everybody in the room, including the person about to approve the twelfth one.

Approving the right question

The question at the moment of approval is never "is KES 40,000 reasonable for this". Almost always it is. The question is "are we willing to be eleven per cent over contract, because that is what approving this makes us".

The second question is answerable. The first is a trap, because thirty individually reasonable answers produce an unreasonable total, and that is precisely how budgets are lost.

What goes wrong

The failure mode is almost never a single large variation. It is thirty small ones, each agreed verbally on site, each individually sensible, none of them priced until the final account. By then the argument is about what was said in March, and the person who said it has moved to another project.

The other failure is instructing without authority. Where a spouse, a relative or a site visitor tells the foreman to move something, and the foreman moves it, somebody is going to pay for it and the contract will not say who. Name one person who can instruct, tell the contractor in writing who that is, and hold the line.

Common questions

Is a verbal site instruction a valid variation?: It may bind you in practice even where the contract requires writing, which is exactly the problem. The safe habit is to confirm every instruction in writing the same day, naming what changes, who instructed it and what it is expected to cost, so that the record exists before anybody needs it.
Should a variation be priced before or after the work?: Before, wherever the information allows. A variation priced after the work is done is a negotiation in which one side has already spent the money, and the other side has already received the benefit. Where urgency genuinely prevents pricing first, agree the basis of pricing first instead.
How many variations is too many?: There is no correct count, and counting is the wrong measure. Track the value as a percentage of the contract sum instead. A build at three per cent is normal, a build at fifteen per cent is a different building from the one that was priced, and the second is worth knowing about in month four rather than at handover.
Who can issue a variation?: Whoever the contract names, which is usually the architect or the employer's representative rather than the employer personally or anyone who happens to visit the site. Name that person in writing at the start and tell the contractor that instructions from anyone else are not instructions.