Construction Management near you

The three models differ in who signs with the trades, who carries the price risk and how early construction can begin. The label on a proposal matters less than what the contract actually says about each of these points.

Under a general contract, the builder absorbs a trade that underbid, a supplier that delivers late or a subcontractor that walks off the job. Under construction management as agent, those problems come back to you. Unless the manager has agreed to a maximum price, the final cost is the sum of the trade contracts plus changes, and a late or failed trade delays every trade scheduled after it, at your expense.

Responsibility for defects is split as well. Each trade warrants its own work, which makes it harder to pin a problem such as a leak where the roofing meets the siding on any one party. Write the manager's duties precisely: reviewing each trade's scope for gaps and overlaps, checking work before it's covered and before it's paid, and keeping records that would support a claim. Ask your insurer whether your home policy still covers a property under construction or whether the project needs a builder's risk policy.

The manager's core work is turning one project into a set of well-defined trade contracts and keeping them in step. In Ontario, the Construction Act requires each payer to retain a 10 per cent holdback on the price of services or materials as they are supplied, so under an agent arrangement you retain it on every trade's payments, and the manager tracks each one separately.

In Quebec, the RBQ's general contractor category covers any contractor whose main activity consists of organizing, coordinating, carrying out or having carried out construction work. A construction manager who organizes and coordinates the trades on your project therefore generally needs an RBQ licence, even without doing any of the work with their own hands. Ask for the licence number and check its subclasses in the RBQ's register, then repeat the check for every trade you sign with directly, since each needs a licence covering its own work.

In other provinces, the rules for builders and managers depend on the province and sometimes the municipality, so ask what applies where you build. Electrical and gas work must still be done by people holding the right provincial qualifications, and the building permit still comes from your municipality, whoever manages the job.

Signing trade contracts yourself brings paperwork a general contractor would otherwise handle. The WSIB treats whoever awards a construction contract as a principal, expects a clearance to be in place before the contractor starts and for as long as they work, and warns that a principal without one may be liable for the contractor's WSIB payment obligations, up to the value of the labour portion of the contract. Its policy excludes homeowners who occupy or will occupy a private residence and directly hire a contractor for exempt home renovation work only, so ask the WSIB where your project falls, and have the manager collect each trade's clearance regardless.

Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act gives overall authority for health and safety on a project to the constructor, defined as a person who undertakes a project for an owner, including an owner who undertakes all or part of a project by themself or by more than one employer. The province's constructor guideline explains that an owner who contracts directly with several contractors working at the same time, with no general contractor, could become the constructor, and that the owner may designate a contractor or a third party to take on the role by contract. Hiring someone only to oversee quality doesn't necessarily make them the constructor.

The Act doesn't apply to work that the owner or occupant does on their own private residence, but how it applies to a home project with several hired trades is worth confirming with the Ministry of Labour or a lawyer. Settle the question before the trades arrive and name the constructor in the construction management agreement.