Stage 7: Completion

Following my articles summarising the RIBA Plan of Works, this article continues from Stage 6: Handover & Close Out. I am now concluding my series of articles going into more detail on each stage to help people better understand the process by which architects work. You may be wondering what could be left to do once the building is finished? This article covers Stage 7: Completion.

You've finished the build process some time ago, the building's been signed off by building control, you have your warranties in place and you've been using the building for a year, so what's left to take place? It all depends on what the terms of the contract were. If you hired an architect, then it's likely that you've got a construction contract in place, which would now need to be finalised.

During the build, the architect would have taken a percentage off each of the payments (the retention sum) for you to hold on to for a year after the build. This ensures that after the builder has left site, they're incentivised to come back and fix any little problems that may have come up over the last year. If they haven't come back to fix these problems, then your architect can help you arrange for someone else to come in an fix it and you can use the retention sum to pay them. However, all being well, the architect should now be in a position to release this sum and conclude the last part of the construction project.