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I am a relitivly new builder (2 years) and have had mostly small jobs that were pretty much on a hand shake. Recently I have bid some higher end remodels and custom homes and the owners are new to me I would like to have signed contract on those homes but I have no idea where to start. I wrote my own but it seems quite vague and I don’t think it would hold much weight if I were to get into a no payment situation. I need both a fixed price contract and a T & M contract for remodels. Is there a computer program that is good for this. Will anyone share a contract with me. Or should I spend the money( which is kind of tight) and have an attorney draw me up 2 contracts. I am a small builder just one employee and I do one house at a time.
Mark
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Mark -
A good place to start is the Association of General Contractors web site.
http://www.agc.com
If you look through their site, they sell pre-printed contracts tailored for just about every situation you could find yourself in. They only cost about $15 for non-members. I have purchased several and what I have done is cribbed from them to improve my contract.
*If you are interested, I have a 10 page contract written up by my lawyer. I paid enough for it to pass it around. If interested, I can send you a copy on computer disk so you can edit it or paper form.Billy
*A contract is your legal and financial butt. The risk is different (although it may not seem different) on a $3K job then $30K or a $300K job.Make sure you understand the contract you use.make sure you understand which type you use and when. Things like (in my world) T&M is not the same as Cost plus. Make sure you understand the book-keeping for the type of contract and how to apply factors.
*I use a contract adapted from gary ransone's book. I recently signed a contract for a remodel of an attorney's house and she spent three hours going over it word by word. She did not provide me with any substantial or useable input. The contract as written in the book is very good and would service most in the busines with minimal changes for your locale and line of work. I would post a copy, but I'm not sure Taunton want's us to do that with copyrighted material.If I recall, the book was 60 bucks or so.Billy, I would love to see a copy of your contract. Can you attach it to email and send it to me?Tom
*Tommy,You should have it. Use Microsoft Word to open it. It is a .wpd extension.Billy
*The site nick mentioned is actually http://www.agc.org... in case anyone else was having trouble. I think duluth trading was selling a software package of builder's contracts and other business forms. I think it cost about 60 or 70 bucks. If they still have it would be on their website, I forgot their exact address, but it shouldn't be too hard to find; and you could pick up a new briefcase to go with it.
*Tommy,It has been returned twice. I used [email protected]
*Billy could you e-mail me a copy too please. Thanks for your help.Louis
*Sorry, augey is correct, the address for AGC is http://www.agc.orgTheir contracts are pretty comprehensive, they even have some that are specially designed for design/build.
*Billy,I would appreciate a copy of that contract also.Thank you in advance.
*Here's the one that we use for all large projects. I'm posting it in both PDF format and as a "doc" for Windows, but the "doc" file may not translate in the original format. However, the wording is still usable.
*Whoops! Forgot the PDF file above.
*Thank you everyone for your help especially those of you who have let me view your contracts. I now have a great starting point and will generate my own. It is great to have so much support. Mark
*Mark,after you've put together your contract I hope you have a lawyer look at it. I believe one of the ways the law works (hope some one agrees or corrects this) is theat the reader interprets, not the writer. So your customers interpretation will count more than yours in a court.BobL
*Bob's right. Especially with your own statutes about liens, Notices of Commencement and your state's legalities.
Allyson,
You sent me a copy of your contract a number of years ago and I'd be very interested to see an updated version.
Thanks,
~Rob
LI-NYcontractor
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I am a relitivly new builder (2 years) and have had mostly small jobs that were pretty much on a hand shake. Recently I have bid some higher end remodels and custom homes and the owners are new to me I would like to have signed contract on those homes but I have no idea where to start. I wrote my own but it seems quite vague and I don't think it would hold much weight if I were to get into a no payment situation. I need both a fixed price contract and a T & M contract for remodels. Is there a computer program that is good for this. Will anyone share a contract with me. Or should I spend the money( which is kind of tight) and have an attorney draw me up 2 contracts. I am a small builder just one employee and I do one house at a time.
Mark