DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE DRAWINGS AND BQ, WHICH TAKE PRECEDENT?

DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE DRAWINGS AND THE BQ, WHICH TAKE PRECEDENT?

It is common to find standard forms of building contract, i.e. the PAM2006/18 come with the version of with and without Quantities. The general contents of these forms may have been similar but the salient difference of the form with Quantities are such that the tender has been called based upon the Quantities drawn up by the respective Quantity Surveyor QS named in the contract and shall be used as the basis for valuation and variation purposes as far as quantities are concerned, but not qualitative such as the ‘standard of quality’ compliance to the ‘approved building plans’ and as such which shall conformed to the drawings, to the ‘satisfaction of the architect’[1].

It came as a surprised when in most of the ‘educational and public talks’ either for the purpose of training future professional architects or otherwise, practitioner speakers whom are deemed to be ‘experts’ on the fields of ‘contract administration’ often echoed the following statement, “In the event of a discrepancy between the drawings and the Bills of Quantities BQ, in the ‘with Quantities’, BQ takes precedent over Drawings, while the ‘without Quantities’, Drawings take precedent and the Bills or the Schedule of Rates are to be treated as reference only”.

I had the privileged of discussing these matters with some ‘living fossils’ of practicing architects and their views as far as the ‘intend and purpose’ of the PAM forms are concerned, are as the followings:
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1. The original ‘intend and purpose’ of the PAM Forms, since the ‘RIBA – JCT days’, had been to enable the ‘architectural design intent’ as per the architectural drawings to be built by the builder.
2. In the early days, QS were employed by the contractors to translate the architectural drawings into BQ to enable suppliers and other contractors to quote. The basis of any BQ has and always been the ‘drawings’.
3. As the ‘interpretation of the drawings’ and the further ‘translation of the drawings’ into BQ had been executed by the QS, meant different versions of BQs may be produced by various contractors thus making evaluation of the tender price, difficult as it is no longer ‘apple to apple’ comparison.
4. As a result, QS has taken a ‘consultative role’ to produce a standardized BQ for the contractor to price. The elevation of the QS from an ‘employed role’ in the contractor’s office to a ‘professional consultant’ has since been taken placed and the production of the standard forms of building contract i.e. the PAM Form with Quantities and in the 2006/18 version with the ‘QS named in the contract’ has sealed its roles and obligations.
5. With the inclusion of the Quantities in the standard form, the issue of ‘translation of drawings’ into BQ has not been entirely resolved. The issue here is, when a discrepancy is found between the drawings and the BQ, which item is to be taken as precedent? The drawings or the Quantities?
6. The original ‘intend and purpose’ of the PAM forms, had been to enable the architectural drawings to be built by the builder has ‘never been displaced’ or compromised. The sole purpose of a contract is to enable the contractor to deliver its work in accordance to the drawings, the ‘approved drawings’ to be more précised.
7. The BQ, as in the ‘with Quantities’ form, or the ‘schedule of rates’, as it is termed in the ‘without Quantities’ form, had always been referred to for the ‘evaluation of Quantities and pricing purposes’, not the ‘qualitative aspect of the work’.
8. Therefore, regardless of the nature of the form be it with or without Quantities, the drawings [always] take precedent. In the event, in both forms, should a discrepancy arise, the drawings shall take precedent over the BQ or the ‘schedule of rate’. The contractor still has the obligation to ‘construct based on the drawings’, simply because, the drawings take precedent.
9. However, in ‘with Quantities’, any omission on the Quantities that was ‘failed to be picked up’ from the drawings were deemed to be a ‘variation’ as far as the Bill is concerned and the contractor shall be duly compensated for a reason that the contract was priced based on the ‘Bills’.
10. Whereas in the ‘without Quantities’ form, any omission in the contractor’s Quantities that was ‘failed to be picked up’ from the drawings were deemed solely the contractor’s own fault not constituting a variation and he shall not be compensated unless is proven, otherwise, for a reason that the contract was priced based on the ‘Drawings’.

Having considered such, the statement that “In the event of a discrepancy between the drawings and the Bills of Quantities BQ, in the ‘with Quantities’ contract, BQ takes precedent over Drawings, while the ‘without Quantities’, Drawings take precedent and the Bills or the Schedule of Rates are to be treated as reference only” is quite ‘misleading’.

It should be said that, “In the event of a discrepancy between the drawings and the Bills of Quantities BQ, in both forms, the Drawings take precedent over the Bills/Rates. In the case of ‘with Quantities’, any omission in the Bills shall be deemed a variation while in the case of ‘without Quantities’, any omission in the contractor’s Bill shall be of its own default not constituting a variation, unless proven, otherwise.”
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It is noted that the contractor is not responsible to ‘check on the consultant’s drawings’ for error reflected as in cl.1.4 PAM2006, “[…] If contractor finds discrepancy […]”, the onus is for the architect to decide accordingly via its instruction. Cl.3.1 PAM2006 further clarified that, “[…] in the event of any conflict or inconsistencies [referring to discrepancy][…] the priority in the interpretation of such documents shall be in the following descending order […]” and cl.3.1(d) the Contract Drawings was prioritized above cl.3.1(e) the Contract Bills. Rather strange that both PAM Forms with/without Quantities have the ‘Bills’ included.

This essay is strictly for educational use only and it does not constitute ‘legal advice’ and should not be relied upon to advice clients on legal matters.

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[1] This term has been rendered as ‘a farrago of obscurities’ by expert liked the late Prof. Vincent Powell Smith but in this context it shall mean in compliance to the ‘approved drawings’.