Payment certification problems: Who is to blame?

Abstract

Problems with payment certificates in the construction industry have always been a popular topic which has attracted wide attention, but especially nowadays with complex and fast-track projects. As these problems often result in expensive disputes between the Employer and Contractor it was nec-essary to investigate what the problems are and who is to blame for these problems. A survey was done amongst twenty one Contractors and Quantity Surveyors to get their views on these problems and the results showed that there are a fair number of Contractors who inflate their payment claims, that the Employer is not always paying the Contractor within the stipulated time and that Contractors are of the opinion that the Quantity Surveyors valuation is not a true reflection of the work done.