How does JCT clause 3.14 work?
The Architect/Contract Administrator may instruct a Variation; the Contractor may make a reasonable objection only to a Variation of the kind referred to in clause 5.1.2; and no Variation invalidates the contract.
Updated: 15 September 2026. By Jack Butler-Kettle, Quantity Surveyor & Claims Consultant.
The answer
Clause 3.14 of SBC/Q 2016 is the power that lets the Architect/Contract Administrator instruct a Variation, and it carries two safeguards: the Contractor may make a reasonable objection to a Variation of the kind referred to in clause 5.1.2, and no Variation instructed or sanctioned under it invalidates the contract. The mechanism starts with a written instruction. The Architect/Contract Administrator may issue instructions requiring a Variation as defined in clause 5.1 and the Contractor carries them out; the contract also lets the Architect/Contract Administrator sanction in writing a Variation the Contractor has made without an instruction, which is the route for regularising change that happened on site first. The reasonable objection is narrow. It applies only to the second limb of the definition, the imposition, addition, alteration or omission of obligations or restrictions on access to or use of the site, working space, working hours or the order of execution, and the objection must be made to the Architect/Contract Administrator in writing and be reasonable; there is no equivalent right to object to an addition, omission or change in the quality or quantity of the work itself. The statement that no Variation invalidates the contract means the Contractor cannot treat a large or awkward change as bringing the contract to an end and price the work afresh outside it: the instruction is valued under section 5, the effect on regular progress goes through clause 4.20 as a Relevant Matter, and time goes through the separate extension of time provisions. What goes wrong in practice is acting on an oral instruction and never getting it confirmed, an objection raised weeks after the work started when it should have preceded compliance, an objection to the scope of work rather than to a restriction, and a claim that the volume of change has changed the bargain when clause 3.14 says it has not.
Example
The situation
An instruction adds 60 metres of drainage and, in the same letter, restricts all deliveries to a two-hour window each afternoon. The two parts of the instruction fall under different limbs of clause 5.1.
What happens
- The drainage is a Variation under the first limb of clause 5.1; the Contractor has no right to object to it, and it is measured and valued under the Valuation Rules at £9,000.
- The delivery restriction is a Variation of the kind referred to in clause 5.1.2.
- The Contractor writes back within the week objecting that a two-hour window cannot service a concrete pour and proposing a four-hour window.
- The Architect/Contract Administrator amends the instruction to the four-hour window.
- The narrowed restriction is valued for its direct cost, and its effect on regular progress is notified under clause 4.21.
The outcome
The drainage is valued at £9,000, and the narrowed delivery restriction is valued for its direct cost with its effect on regular progress notified under clause 4.21.
A Contractor who works to the two-hour window for a month before claiming leaves the objection nothing to bite on.