Pre-construction activities

The traditional method of procuring a construction project where the employer and its design team finalise their requirements first and then send the documents out to contractors for them to submit tenders is being used less frequently. The rise in different forms of procurement and the need to reduce pre-construction timetables, combined with a realisation that early contractor involvement can be very useful, has resulted in the increasing use of forms of pre-construction agreements and two stage tendering. Two regularly used forms of agreement utilised before a building contract is entered into are letters of intent and 'Pre-Construction Services Agreements' (PCSAs).

Other issues of significance during the pre-construction stages of a project include demolition and ground conditions.

Letters of intent

A letter of intent is essentially a written expression of a party's intention to enter into a contract at a later stage. Traditionally, the advice given to employers has been not to enter into letters of intent if possible, ie to avoid entering into contractual relations, until all of the proposed contract terms are agreed. As letters of intent are by their nature very brief, litigation frequently arises

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Latest Construction News

Construction weekly highlights—24 July 2025

This week's edition of Construction weekly highlights includes the Court of Appeal (CoAs)’s decision in relation to NHBC Buildmark Choice policies confirming that the cause of action accrues when the insured party ‘has to pay more’ to complete the building work as a result of contractor insolvency (National House Building Council v Peabody Trust), Construction Leadership Council (CLC) guidance on Building Control Approval Applications for new higher-risk buildings, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) guidance on the Building Safety Levy, MHCLG’s announcement of legal deadlines for landlords to remediate unsafe cladding in social housing, a Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) consultation on it updated cladding valuation standard, a British Standards Institution (BSI) consultation on a new code of practice for bringing safe construction products to the market, a Technology and Construction Court (TCC) decision enforcing an adjudicator’s decision to award the responding party in the adjudication the notified sum (VMA Services v Project One), a CoA decision providing guidance on "costs directly incurred" in a waste management project agreement (Buckinghamshire Council v FCC Buckinghamshire Ltd), an update on the status of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill together with updated guidance from MHCLG on the same, the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA)’s interactive Infrastructure Pipeline tool, and publication of the Welsh Government’s circular on updated building control profession standards and codes.

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