Jump to content

Contractor Liability of Government Property


Recommended Posts

Who owns possession of the contruction site of a full building renovation? Senario: The A&E left a piece of equiptment off the drawings for salvage and was partially demoed by the construction contractor. The Government informed the contractor that this piece of equoptment was to stay and be reinstalled once the building was complete. The item stayed in the building for over one year and is now missing. Who is at fault. The Governmnet placed original fault on the A&E firm for the inaccurracy in the drawings. However, once a decision was made to salvage the equiptment and it had been in the building for one year and the construction contractor was made aware it is not his responsibility to make sure the item was salvaged and kept safe. A proposal was recieved to replace the missing equiptment (8k). The construction contract was for $8 million. I was initially looking at FAR 46 to see where the burden of liablity was and then on to 52.228-5 for property damage insurance. What clauses would help in this instance. Is the construction contractor responsible for the building and losses while in their possesion during construction prior to subtaintial completeion and final acceptance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See contract clauses 52.236-7 -- Permits and Responsibilities and 52.236-9 -- Protection of Existing Vegetation, Structures, Equipment, Utilities, and Improvements.

I hope these are in your contract. The Contractor must protect existing structure and equipment. Once the Government directed that the equipment be reinstalled in lieu of removal, the Contractor was required to protect it.

Your original question was: "Who owns possession of the contruction site of a full building renovation?" Those clauses make the Contractor responsible for damage to existing structures, equipment, vegetation and improvements while in its possession. Generally, Builder's risk policies should cover losses such as the one you mentioned, although I don't know all the details here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...