Construction File:

Standard Stipulated Price Contract Documents Now Available Online

A standard front end stipulated price document for use on publicly funded building projects with CCDC 2, Stipulated Price Contract (1994), is now available on the website of the Public Construction Council of BC. This document, which has been endorsed by the BC Construction Association and the Architectural Institute of BC, was created in consultation with an AIBC Working Group consisting of public owner representatives, design professional representatives from the Architectural Institute of BC, Consulting Engineers of BC and the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of BC and contractor representatives from BC Construction Association.

A desire to create a seamless standard document, which lends itself to fair distribution of the risk in the bidding/contracting process, is what led to this somewhat unique collaboration and outcome. The document is complementary to CCDC 2 (1994) and the standard document’s Standard Supplementary Conditions include some changes that will be implemented in the much anticipated new CCDC 2, which is expected to be available in the Fall of 2004. This AIBC Working Group Document will be amended at that time to reflect the changes. The ‘Front End’ (Instructions to Bidders and Bid Form) part of the document reflects much material drawn from the upcoming 2004 edition of CCDC-23.

Some of the areas where the document has addressed the issue of reducing risk to the owners and other benefits are:

  • Use of a standard document will attract more bidders to a project. Familiar contracts enable contractors to more easily quantify risk, reducing the need to increase bids in order to compensate for the unknown.
  • Guidelines and formats to assist with creating a complete bidding document with guidelines for:
    • An Invitation to Bid.
    • Guidelines for some Specification Division 1
      General Requirements issues that in the past
      have often appeared questionably as Supplementary
      Conditions.
    • Clarifications of some General Conditions in
      CCDC 2 of which misinterpretations in the
      past have led to questionable Supplementary
      Conditions.
    • Guidelines for other specification issues relating
      to Record Drawings, Cash Allowances and
      Extended Warranties.
    • Site Visit Guidelines for post-bid-closing site
      visits.
    • A Checklist to assist bidding calling authorities
      with completing these Standard Documents.
  • The ‘Front End’ documents are drafted in the
    context of current contract law allowing the
    owner some flexibility to deal with bidding errors
    and procedures. One asset is that the document
    includes a ‘Guideline for Administering Bidding
    Irregularities’, which the AIBC Working Group
    members thought would be valuable to assist bid
    calling authorities in dealing with irregularities
    that appear on Contractors’ Bid Forms from time
    to time.
  • Supplementary Conditions that allow acceleration
    of the work when the project falls behind schedule
    due to the fault of the contractor.

The Construction File is a publication of the BC Construction Association.
For additional information contact the BCCA.