Ask why a commercial project ran over budget and you’ll hear “change orders” like they’re weather — something that just happens to you. They aren’t. Change orders are what the standard process is built to produce, and the owner is the one who pays for them.
The chain that leaves you holding the gap
Here’s how a typical job is wired. The architect draws it. The contractor bids what’s drawn. You sign two separate contracts, and each one protects the party who signed it, not your outcome. Then the drawings and the build don’t line up in the field, because they rarely do, and the gap between them lands on you:
- The architect isn’t on the hook for what it costs to build.
- The contractor isn’t on the hook for what the drawings left out.
- You’re on the hook for both, and you find out at framing.
Rework is the output, not the accident
The industry treats change orders, value engineering, and finger-pointing as surprises. They’re the expected result of a process that never asked the hard questions in the right order. When one firm owns the drawings and the build on a single contract, there’s no seam to pay for. Nobody in that room profits from the gap, so the gap closes before it reaches you.
