Perth builder reviewing a thick commercial construction subcontract with a pen at a site desk

Sub-Contract Reviews Perth

We read the fifty-page commercial subcontract you have been handed, flag the clauses that put you at risk and the scope the pricing never allowed for, before you sign. Perth builders and subcontractors.

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18+ years experience
First estimate free
24hr turnaround
No lock-in contract

The Contract Is Written in the Builder's Favour

A commercial subcontract is not written to protect you. It is drafted by the head contractor's lawyers to shift as much risk as possible down the chain onto the subbie who signs it.

These agreements run to fifty pages or more, and the clauses that hurt you are buried in language most tradies never get time to read properly. You are on the tools all day and the contract lands in your inbox with a Friday deadline to sign.

We read the whole thing, flag the parts that put your money and your business at risk, and point out the scope the pricing quietly assumes you will do for free. We are estimators, not lawyers, so for the legal wording you still use a solicitor. What we give you is a plain-English picture of what you are actually signing up for.

Thick printed subcontract document with pages fanned out on a desk beside a pen and reading glasses

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What We Check in a Subcontract

The dollar figure at the front of a subcontract is the part everyone reads. The clauses that decide whether you keep that money are further back, and they are where a job goes from profitable to painful.

Clause Area	What We Flag	Why It Matters to a Subbie
Scope of works	Vague wording, 'all works reasonably required', undocumented inclusions	This is how unpaid scope creeps in. If it is not priced, it should not be in scope.
Payment terms	Long payment periods, pay-when-paid clauses, retention amounts	A 45-day payment term on thin margins can sink your cash flow before the job is done.
Variations	Notice periods, written-instruction requirements, valuation method	Miss the notice period and you do the extra work for nothing.
Liquidated damages	Daily damages rate, who owns the program, delay definitions	You can wear a delay caused by someone else if the clause is not carved out.
Retention and security	Retention percentage, release milestones, bank guarantee demands	Money held for months after you finish, sometimes never released without a fight.
Defects liability	Length of the period, what counts as a defect, call-back obligations	A long or vague defects period keeps you on the hook well after practical completion.

The six areas we look at first on every subcontract review. The exact risk depends on the contract, the head contractor and the job.

Pay-When-Paid Is the One That Catches Subbies Out

A pay-when-paid or pay-if-paid clause means you only get paid once the head contractor gets paid by the principal, which can be never if the job goes bad above you. In Western Australia the Security of Payment Act limits how far these clauses can go, but plenty of subcontracts still try it on. If we see one, you hear about it before you sign.

Nobody Reads Page Forty

A commercial subcontract can run past fifty pages. The price and the scope are at the front, which is the part everyone reads before signing.

The clauses that decide whether you get paid on time, who wears a delay and what happens when the head contractor changes the drawings are much further in.

The Clauses We Always Flag

Payment terms and how claim dates are actually counted
Pay when paid style wording that is not enforceable but still bites
Retention amounts and when release is triggered
Time bars on variation and delay notices
Liquidated damages and how they are calculated
Scope by reference to documents you have never seen
Insurance and indemnity obligations that sit above your cover
Suspension, set off and termination for convenience

Hands turning a page of a thick printed contract document with a highlighter resting alongside — The clauses that cost you money are rarely at the front. They sit in the middle, in the sections that read like boilerplate.

50+

Pages in a typical set

Commercial subcontracts

Days

Time bars identified

Notice periods marked up

24hr

Usual turnaround

Standard subcontracts

Free

First job

No lock-in contract

Commercial building site with concrete columns and suspended slab formwork propped above

Sign It Once, Live With It All Job

A subcontract is the only document that governs the whole job. Once it is signed, every disagreement that follows is settled by what is written in it, not by what was said on site.

An hour spent reading it properly is the cheapest hour in the entire project. It is also the only hour where you still have leverage, because before you sign you can still ask for a change.

We are not lawyers and we do not pretend to be. What we do is tell you, in plain language, what the commercial risk in front of you actually is.

Scope Gaps Are Where the Money Leaks

The most expensive part of a bad subcontract is rarely a single nasty clause. It is the gap between what you priced and what the contract quietly expects you to deliver.

The Scope Traps We See Most Often

Set-out, survey or engineering that the contract makes your responsibility but you assumed was the builder's
Temporary works, propping, edge protection or traffic management priced by nobody and expected of everybody
Cleaning, waste removal and skip costs bundled into your rate without a line for it
Attendance on other trades, standing time and re-work caused by the program, not by you
Provisional sums and prime cost items that carry more scope than the allowance covers
Compliance documents, test certificates and handover paperwork that take real hours to produce

A subbie does not lose money on the work they quoted. They lose it on the work the contract assumed they would throw in for free.

We cross-check the subcontract scope against your actual takeoff and price. Where the contract asks for something the price never covered, we tell you, so you can either claim it, price it as a variation or push back before you sign.

How a Sub-Contract Review Works

You send us the contract and your pricing. We read both, mark up the risks and hand you a clear summary. Most reviews come back inside a couple of days, faster if a signing deadline is on you.

01
Send Us the Contract and Your Price
Email the full subcontract, any attached schedules and the price or takeoff you submitted. The more we have, the more we can catch.
02
We Read the Whole Agreement
Every page, not just the front sheet. We work through scope, payment, variations, damages, retention and defects clause by clause.
03
We Cross-Check Scope Against Your Price
We compare what the contract expects against what you actually priced, and flag every gap where unpaid scope is hiding.
04
You Get a Plain-English Summary
A written markup listing the clauses that put you at risk and the scope you have not been paid for, ranked by how much it could cost you.
05
You Decide Before You Sign
Push back on the clauses, price the gaps as variations, or walk away from a job that was never going to pay. You go in with your eyes open.

50+

Pages Read

Every clause, not just the front sheet

SOP Act 2021

Payment protection flagged

2 Days

Typical Turnaround

Faster on a deadline

Free

First Review

Test us before you commit

Where a Review Ends and a Lawyer Starts

We are honest about what a sub-contract review is and is not. We spend our days in construction contracts and we know where subbies get stung, so we can tell you what a clause means for your margin and your risk in plain terms.

We Are Estimators, Not Solicitors

A sub-contract review tells you what the contract asks of you commercially and where the money risk sits. It is not legal advice and it does not replace a solicitor. If a clause needs to be legally challenged, redrafted or enforced, that is a job for a construction lawyer, and we will tell you when you have reached that point.

For most jobs, the review is enough to negotiate a fairer deal or price the risk properly. For the ones that are not, you at least know exactly which clause to hand your lawyer, instead of paying them to read all fifty pages from scratch.

Common Questions

Straight answers on how we price sub-contract reviews in Perth. If yours is not here, send your plans and just ask.

No. A sub-contract review is a commercial and scope check, not legal advice. We tell you what a clause means for your money, your cash flow and your risk in plain English, and we flag the scope you have not been paid for. If a clause needs to be legally challenged or redrafted, that is a job for a construction solicitor and we will tell you when you have hit that point.

Most commercial subcontracts are turned around within a couple of business days. If you have a signing deadline breathing down your neck, tell us when you send it and we will do our best to fast-track it. A fifty-page agreement takes time to read properly, and rushing it defeats the purpose.

Send the full subcontract with every schedule and annexure attached, plus the price or takeoff you submitted for the job. Having your pricing lets us cross-check the contract scope against what you actually allowed for, which is where most of the value is. If you only have part of the contract, send what you have and we will tell you what is missing.

Yes, and sometimes that is the smarter order. Reviewing the contract first means you can build the risky clauses and the hidden scope into your price rather than discovering them after you have already committed to a number. If the tender timeline allows it, send the contract early.

No. We review commercial subcontracts for concreters, bricklayers, plasterers, tilers and other Perth subbies and small builders. The trade changes the scope detail, but the contract traps, payment terms, variations, damages, retention, defects, are much the same across trades.

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