Are Your Contracts Setting Projects Up to Fail?

You know the drill. Client wants champagne design on a prosecco budget. You create something beautiful. Then the whole thing implodes at tender stage.

Everyone blames the contractor's pricing. Or the client's unrealistic expectations. Or the supply chain chaos.

But what if the real culprit is sitting in your project folder right now? That standard JCT contract you signed without thinking twice about?

I’m going to let you in on a secret; JCT contracts were written assuming bad faith. And surprise, that's exactly what they create.

CASE IN POINT

It’s a story many of us recognise. Ambitious residential project. Inspired design. Enthusiastic client. But when the ink dries on the contract, the seeds of future tension are often already in place, not through intent, but through how risk and responsibility are structured from day one.

Design coordination shouldn’t be a mystery, most contracts define who’s responsible.

The challenge is what happens in practice. Drawings change, specialists join late, and assumptions then multiply. That’s where the gaps start to appear, not in the clauses, but in the collaboration.

When the gaps widen, the trust inevitably thins. Costs rise, timelines slip, and everyone starts protecting their corner instead of the project.

WHERE PROJECTS START TOO LATE

The issue isn’t any one profession, it’s the sequence the industry still follows. Contracts are often signed before the people responsible for delivering the work have had meaningful input.

Budgets are fixed on incomplete information, risks are priced on assumption, and everyone spends the rest of the project managing out the consequences. The problem isn’t lack of skill or intent, it’s the entire structure itself.

When commercial terms and communication start too late, even the most capable teams are forced into reactive, not proactive, decision-making.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN CONTRACTS TAKE SIDES?

Old habits die hard. Risk still flows one way… downwards.

The contractors' prices lean to stay competitive, then survive through variations once the unknowns surface. And just like that, a single project turns into two sides: client vs contractor, with the design team caught in between. Not through bad faith, just a system built on misaligned incentives.

SO WHAT DOES WORK?

Projects run better when collaboration starts before the contract is signed.

When contractors are engaged early, they can test design assumptions, flag buildability issues, and highlight where costs or risks might otherwise surface later.

Early clarity on design intent, programme constraints, and interfaces allows realistic pricing and removes the need for defensive allowances or reactive claims.

Bring contractors in early.Share information openly.Let everyone make a fair profit.

That’s when collaboration becomes more than a slogan, it becomes structure.When everyone understands the risks, the costs, and the constraints from day one, you stop managing surprises and start delivering projects.

THE REAL COST OF CONFLICT...

When projects unravel, the damage goes far beyond the numbers. Budgets can be recovered, but the trust? Well that can take much longer.

Client relationships strain, teams lose momentum, and the shared pride that drives great design quietly fades. In high-end residential work, reputation is currency.

A single project that turns adversarial can ripple through future opportunities, not because of the outcome, but because of the experience. That’s why collaboration isn’t just about better margins, it’s about preserving the relationships that make this industry work.

Collaboration protects more than budgets; it protects relationships.

A DIFFERENT WAY OF THINKING

What if project success wasn’t judged by how well teams recover from conflict, but by how rarely conflict appears in the first place?

Imagine if cost certainty, design intent, and contractual clarity were aligned before anyone signed. Not radical ideas, just the foundation of genuinely collaborative delivery.

That’s the shift we need. Away from protecting positions and towards protecting the project. Because when drawings, budgets and contracts speak the same language, everyone wins for the right reasons.

Are we ready to design that kind of industry?

TIME TO GET HONEST?

We’ve normalised conflict as a by-product of construction. “It’s just how things work.”

But it isn’t.

Disputes aren’t inevitable, they’re the outcome of frameworks that divide rather than unite. Change the framework, and you change the relationships that sit within it.

The best practices already know this. They bring cost and buildability thinking in early. They share information transparently. And they treat fair profit as the foundation of collaboration, not a by-product of negotiation.

So perhaps the question isn’t why the system keeps failing, it’s when we’ll stop accepting it as normal.

SO WHAT NOW?

You can keep doing things the traditional way. Sign JCT contracts. Hope for the best. Deal with the inevitable disputes. Or you can acknowledge that the system is broken and work with people who've figured out a better way.

Your choice.

Book a 20-minute call. We'll look at your typical project and show you where the budget gaps usually hide.

https://www.multiproject.org/