Termination Account & Cost to Complete
RemedialHourlyFor Subcontractors, Main Contractors & Clients
When a contract ends in termination, I build the account its termination provisions require, for the terminating party or the terminated.
The problem
Termination drops the job's money into a form nobody planned for: the works valued to a date nobody chose, a completion contract on new prices, and both sides claiming from the same set of facts. The provisions are precise about what the account must contain, the value of work executed at the termination date, the cost of completing what was left, the balance between them, but the figures usually arrive as assertions: a completion cost with betterment folded in, an executed value nobody measured at the time. Whoever builds the cleaner account holds the ground.
The solution
I build the account the provisions actually call for. The value of work executed at the termination date, evidenced line by line from the records; the cost to complete, analysed against the original scope with betterment and out-of-scope work stripped out; and the balance, every figure traced to a document. I do the same work from either side, building your account or testing theirs. Whether the termination was valid is a legal question for your solicitor: I take the termination as an event with a date and build the money from it, and I never assess who caused any delay.
What you receive
You hold the account the provisions actually require, whichever side of the termination you are on: the executed value evidenced line by line, the completion cost tested against the original scope, and the balance struck with every figure traced to a document. It lands as a worked schedule with a written report behind it, ready for negotiation, your solicitor or adjudication.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: the timetable is agreed in writing at scoping and then kept.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You send me the paperwork
Everything in the list below in one go, so the account starts from the documents rather than the argument.
- A
Contract and amendments
EssentialWithout it: You are building the wrong account
Where to find it: The commercial folder or the order email.
Why I need it: The account is whatever the termination provision says it is
- B
Extension of time awards made before termination, or written confirmation that none was made
EssentialWithout it: The apportionment is run over the contract particulars period, which overstates the weekly amount, or it cannot be run at all
Where to find it: The contract administrator's or certifier's award letters; the employer's contract file and the contractor's hold the same letters.
Why I need it: Fixes the denominator of the preliminaries apportionment, the contract period as extended
- C
Termination correspondence
EssentialWithout it: The account has no anchor date
Where to find it: The formal correspondence file; they usually went by recorded post and email together.
Why I need it: Fixes the date and the provision operated
- D
Payment history
EssentialWithout it: The balance cannot be struck
Where to find it: Your QS's working files hold the applications and certificates, or ask whoever issued them for copies from their sent items.
Why I need it: The paid side of the balance
- E
Records at termination
ImportantWithout it: The valuation is assertion
Where to find it: The site office files and your QS's working folders.
Why I need it: Evidence of work executed
- F
Completion contract and account
EssentialWithout it: The deduction cannot be tested
Where to find it: Whoever ran the completion holds them; for the terminated side, they usually arrive attached to the claim against you.
Why I need it: The other half of an employer-side account
- G
The priced document the contract rates live in, with its preliminaries section: the contract bills, the contract sum analysis, the schedule of rates or the priced activity schedule, whichever of them the contract names as a contract document
EssentialWithout it: Nothing can be valued at contract rates, so the account states what the work was worth without being able to show why
Where to find it: Bound with the contract, or in the tender file. Whoever priced or checked the tender holds the working copy, usually in the format it was priced in.
Why I need it: The review values the whole executed position at contract rates and apportions the priced preliminaries out of this document; the work prices the remaining scope at the same rates to compare with the completion cost
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
You walk me through how the job ended
One call on how the termination landed and what state the works were in on the date.
Termination Terms Confirmed
The provision operated, the termination date and the account rules are confirmed from the executed contract before any figure is built.
I value the work executed at the termination date
Measured and evidenced from the records, to the date the termination documents fix.
I analyse the cost to complete
Against the original scope, with betterment and out-of-scope work stripped out and shown separately.
I strike the balance and build the account
Every figure traced to a document, in the structure the termination provisions require.
Account Traced, Advice Bounded
Every line traces to a filed document and the balance is struck only as the contract allows; questions of validity stay with your solicitor.
You take the account forward
It goes out in your name, or to your solicitor if the dispute is already formal.
I hand over the termination account, every figure traced
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
My products used
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
Where the job ended normally and the argument is about the account itself, Final Account Dispute runs that recovery. Where the termination followed a main contractor's insolvency, Main Contractor Insolvency Response deals with the first days and the claim into the insolvency.