Change order

A change order is how a live contract absorbs a changed reality: an owner's added scope, a design development that moved quantities, a site condition nobody priced. The instrument records what changed, what it costs, and what time it adds, and — critically — it is agreed and signed by both parties, converting a potential dispute into administered contract. Pricing comes from the contract's own machinery where possible: bill rates, schedules of rates, or negotiated lump sums where no rate fits. (In FIDIC and UK usage the same instrument is a variation; the mechanics differ in detail, the function is identical.)

The discipline that matters is sequence. Work performed ahead of the signed paper — under verbal instruction, under schedule pressure — leaves the contractor carrying cost with no agreed entitlement and the owner facing a claim instead of a change order. Most construction disputes are change orders that never got signed.

The quieter failure is cumulative impact. Each change prices its own direct cost, but fifty changes also destroy productivity, sequencing and supervision ratios in ways no individual order captured — a loss both parties can see and neither signed for.