Contract practice questions
Contract practice is where an assessor can check you in a single follow-up, so the questioning goes deep quickly. The pattern is almost always the same: a situation, then what the contract requires, then what you did, then what you would advise now. Know the forms you have actually administered rather than the ones you have read about.
Contract practice
Apply standard forms of contract (JCT, NEC); advise on the selection of the form and warranties for the chosen procurement route, and on the right contractual procedure at each stage. Core to Level 3.
What the assessor is listening for
- That you reason from the contract in front of you rather than from general practice. Which form, which mechanism, what it requires.
- That you respect the notice and timing requirements, and can say what happens when one is missed.
- That you separate an entitlement to time from an entitlement to money.
- That you administer the contract impartially where your role requires it, even when your fee is paid by one party.
Level 1
Knowledge & understanding - you can explain the principle.
- Which standard forms have you administered, and what would make you recommend one over another?A strong answer covers: The forms you have personally worked under, the family each belongs to, and the characteristics that make one suit a project: risk allocation, the management style it demands, and how change is handled.
- What are the main duties of the person administering the contract?A strong answer covers: Certification, valuation, determining time and change, and acting impartially between the parties where the form requires it. Then who appoints that person and why the impartiality still holds.
Level 2
Application - you have done it yourself and can describe how.
- What does your contract require when an event occurs that may affect cost or completion?A strong answer covers: The notice the form requires, who gives it and within what period, what supporting information must follow, and the consequence of failing to give it. Use the form you actually worked under.
- Talk me through how you valued a variation.A strong answer covers: The valuation rules in that form and the order they apply in (contract rates, rates of a similar character, fair valuation, daywork), what you used and why, and what you did about the effect on the rest of the works.
- How did you deal with an extension of time application?A strong answer covers: The entitlement claimed, the evidence tested against the programme, cause and effect, whether the delay was on the critical path, the decision made and communicated, and whether money followed the time or did not.
Level 3
Reasoned advice & depth of judgement - you have advised others and can justify decisions and trade-offs.
- The contractor has missed a notice deadline but the event genuinely happened. What do you advise your client?A strong answer covers: The contractual position first, honestly stated, then whether the form makes the notice a condition precedent, then the commercial and relationship consequences of taking the point. The advice, and the risk in it.
- Your client wants to terminate. What do you advise them to consider?A strong answer covers: Whether a ground exists under the form, the procedure and its timing, the cost and programme consequences of completing with someone else, the likelihood of dispute, and the alternatives short of termination.
- How would you advise a client to reduce the disputes they end up in?A strong answer covers: Practical, specific measures: clearer scope, realistic programmes, early warning and prompt determination of change, records kept as the job runs rather than reconstructed. What you have seen work.
How candidates lose this one
Talking about contracts in general. An answer that never names a form or a mechanism is an answer about nothing.
Claiming Level 3 while describing administration. Advising the client what to do about a contractual position is the Level 3 act.
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