Project Management near you

An owner's representative follows the project from the first sketch to the last touch-up. What changes from one assignment to the next is how much of that work you hand over and how much you keep for yourself.

Most renovation companies of any size employ project managers or site supervisors. They schedule crews, order materials and keep homeowners informed, and many do it well, but the company pays them and they answer to it. When a disagreement comes up about whether something was in the price, whose mistake caused a delay or whether a finish is acceptable, their job is to represent the company's position.

An owner's representative has no stake in the builder's profit. They can compare quotes on equal terms, push back on a change order for work that should have been included, and decline to recommend payment for work that isn't done. On a design-led project, the architect or designer sometimes covers part of this role through contract administration, so ask whether their agreement includes site reviews and invoice certification before you hire someone else to do it.

For a single-trade job, or a simple bathroom with a contractor you already trust, a clear contract and regular check-ins usually give you most of what a manager would. The case for one grows with complexity, distance and the number of separate parties involved.

Project managers bill in a handful of ways, and the structure matters as much as the amount because it shapes their incentives. Whatever the method, the agreement should list the services, the reports you'll receive, how often the manager visits, who pays for drawings and consultants, and how the arrangement ends if the project stops.

An owner's representative is only worth hiring if the advice is independent, so ask about anything that could pull it the other way. The most common is a referral fee or commission from a contractor, supplier or showroom the manager recommends. Others include a manager who owns part of a construction company and steers the work toward it, or who buys materials on your behalf and marks them up without saying so.

None of these is automatically disqualifying, but each should be disclosed in writing before you rely on the advice. Ask the manager to confirm that they receive nothing from the contractors and suppliers on your project, or to list what they do receive. Invite several contractors to bid, keep copies of every quote rather than a summary, have invoices addressed to you, and pay the contractor directly rather than through the manager.

Paying the contractor is where an owner's representative earns much of the fee. In Ontario, the Construction Act requires each payer to retain a holdback of 10 per cent of the price of services or materials as they are supplied, as our general contractors page explains. The manager records the holdback on every progress payment, tracks when it can be released and makes sure the paperwork that release depends on is in hand.

The Act also contains prompt payment rules that set deadlines for paying a proper invoice and for disputing it in writing, and further deadlines for the payments that flow down to subcontractors. Letting an invoice sit until the next site meeting can make it harder to dispute later, so a good manager reviews each one as soon as it arrives and tells you promptly if part of it shouldn't be paid. How these rules apply to your contract depends on its terms and the project, so have a construction lawyer review the payment clauses before you sign.