Construction Contracts

Full Article in Properties Magazine

Allocating the Risks and Benefits of Green Construction

Sustainable (or “green”) construction practices and the trend toward green buildings are here to stay, driven not only by federal, state, and local legislation, tax credits, and incentives, but also by consumer, corporate, and shareholder demand.  If they haven’t already, owners, architects

Under Ohio’s Prompt Pay Act, a general contractor could end up paying more for the subcontractor’s attorneys’ fees than the general contractor owed to the subcontractor. That was the ruling by the Ohio appellate court in Atlas Piers NEO v. Summit Construction Co., Inc., 2021-Ohio-2024 (9th Dist.). In Atlas Piers, the general contractor

Are you a contractor that would like to employ 16 or 17-year-olds (“minors”)? House Bill 33 (establishing the state budget for 2023-25) permits minors to work on construction sites in certain limited situations.

Note! There is nothing in the new law that requires contractors to hire minors – or to engage subcontractors who hire minors

When reviewing a contract, how often have you had the following thoughts: “That provision is so one-sided, there’s no way it will be enforced the way it’s written!” Or “I won’t worry about negotiating that provision; a court would never enforce it as written.”

A recent decision from Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals illustrates

Owners and contractors should be knowledgeable in the various contract forms and their associated risks. Among the most common construction forms are 1) lump sum, 2) cost plus a fee and the hybrid, 3) cost plus a fee with a guaranteed maximum price. Each allocates risk differently and has different benefits for the parties.

A lump

Non-compete clauses in employment contracts are subject to a wide variety of state laws that limit their effectiveness, but often leave room for reasonable restrictions when an employee leaves. A proposed new rule from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would bring uniformity to the law – by banning employers from entering into non-compete clauses

Contractors learned many lessons from 2020-2022 on material/labor availability, price escalation, and contractual allocations of risk.  Prudent contractors will consider this in contracts moving forward.

Show Me the Money

Long gone are the days of large projects that are simply private or public.  Large projects are multi-layered when it comes to funding.  Federal, state, and

Yesterday, the Ohio House of Representatives passed a bill (H.B. No. 68) that would amend Ohio’s Prompt Pay Act (ORC Section 4113.61) to provide general contractors with payment protection akin to that currently enjoyed by subcontractors under the Act.  HLP construction attorney Sonja Rice discusses the details of this bill in a recent Legal Alert