The Concept of the Contract for Work and the Parties’ Obligations
Disputes about the scope of work in construction practice are resolved under the norms of the contract for work of the Civil Code of Georgia. Under Article 629, under a contract for work the contractor undertakes to perform the work provided for by the contract, while the client is obliged to pay the contractor the agreed remuneration. This definition underlies every dispute concerning what volume of work was agreed, what was included in the remuneration, and who bears the responsibility for cost overruns.
The same article establishes two important rules. First: where the work involves the manufacture of an article and the contractor manufactures it from materials acquired by himself, he transfers to the client ownership of the manufactured article, and where a generic thing has been manufactured, the rules on sale apply. Second: the drawing up of a cost estimate connected with the work is not compensated unless otherwise provided by agreement. The practical conclusion is this: if the client wishes to steer the changes in the scope of work through documentation, the obligation to compensate the estimate must be expressly provided for in the contract; otherwise the cost of preparing it remains the contractor’s risk.