A review on the effectiveness of the Joint Building Contracts Committee Series 2000 Principal Building Agreement – A contractors’ perspective

Abstract

With the growth experienced in the building industry, it is increasingly important to have a contract document that can be used on projects that is reasonably acceptable to all parties concerned. The focus of the study was to determine the effectiveness of the Joint Building Contracts Committee Series 2000 Principal Building Agreement (JBCC 2000 PBA) (Edition 4.1, March 2005) as used in the building industry. Although edition 5 (2007) was made available after this study was conducted, contractors still have the choice to use either one of them. Primary data was collected by means of interviews and a structured questionnaire sent to selected contractors in the South African building industry. Secondary data was obtained from the literature reviewed in relevant publications. The main findings were that the JBCC 2000 PBA is the most favoured contract document used by contractors in the building industry but that there are still areas of concern with regards to the difficulty in interpreting and implementing numerous clauses of the document, amendments being made to the document without any legal advice and that developing building contractors experience difficulties in general where the JBCC 2000 PBA is used as contract document on projects. The study concluded with recommendations for amendments to the contract document to ensure that the document will be acceptable to all contractors in the building industry and ultimately to be an internationally acceptable document.