Legal blog post about the relation between the customer’s instructions and the volume of the contract

Attorney-at-law Siret Siilbek wrote about the relation between the customer’s instructions and the volume of the contract in a legal blog post.

Siret explains that the Supreme Court of Estonia provided instructions in a decision from the end of last year, which concerned how to specify whether a certain work is included in the volume of the contract or whether it is an additional work which is additionally remunerated by the customer.

The Supreme Court especially pointed out that it cannot be concluded that the work was included in the agreed price from the sole fact that the work should have been included in the initial price offer or it was needed for construction work. In case the parties of a contract for service are disputing over wether a certain work is included in the volume of a contract or whether it is additional work, it should be primarily assessed, what is the reason for performing the disputed works.

In general, the Supreme Court has found that usually the contractor needs to take into account the works that are necessary in essence, but have not been specifically established by the contract. If the contractor cannot foresee all possible works when concluding the contract because of the customer’s incorrect or inaccurate information (specially in case of a insufficient project or preparatory work), it is considered additional work. In case the contractor reasonably complies with the customer’s instructions and composes a price offer accordingly, the work ordered later cannot be included in the volume of the contract.

Although the contractor’s duty of diligence is continually emphasised, it is still needed to specify when disputes arise, whether the insufficiency of a project or preparatory work is recognisable for the contractor or if the contractor would at least hesitate about the correctness of the information provided. If the contractor never found out about incorrect information, then the work performed later is considered additional work and should be additionally remunerated.

The legal blog post can be read from Addenda’s home page on https://www.addenda.ee/vandeadvokaat-siret-siilbek-tellija-juhiste-ja-lepingu-mahu-seosest

For all questions relating to the post, you may contact Siret by e-mai on siret@alternalaw.ee or by calling +372 680 6850.

Law Firm ALTERNA