₦airaland Forum

**Need help controlling your building project cost?**

Many construction projects experience cost overruns because of inaccurate quantities, uncontrolled variations, overpricing, and poor payment verification.

At **BuildQuant Advisory Limited**, we assist clients with:

• BOQ preparation and checking
• Construction cost estimates
• Contractor quotation review
• Valuation and payment certification
• Variation assessment
• Cost control and budget monitoring
• Final account preparation
• Quantity surveying consultancy

If you are planning a construction project in Lagos or elsewhere in Nigeria and need professional cost advice, you can send me a DM.

**BuildQuant Advisory Limited — helping clients understand, control and manage construction costs.**

One of the most expensive mistakes a property owner can make is approving a contractor's quotation simply because the total amount appears reasonable.
A quotation of ₦50 million may look acceptable at first glance, but the real question is:
What exactly are you getting for the ₦50 million?
Before approving a major construction quotation, I recommend checking at least these 10 things:
1. Scope of work
Is everything you expect the contractor to execute actually included?
2. Quantities
Are the quantities realistic, or have some items been overstated?
3. Unit rates
Are the rates reasonable for the specification, location and current market conditions?
4. Material specifications
Does the quotation clearly identify the quality, grade and specification of materials?
5. Labour costs
Are labour costs reasonable for the work involved?
6. Omissions
Are important construction activities missing from the quotation?
7. Provisional sums
Are provisional sums clearly explained, or are they being used to hide uncertain costs?
8. Contractor's overhead and profit
Are these clearly identifiable and reasonable?
9. Variations
What happens if the contractor later says that additional money is required?
10. Payment structure
Are you paying in line with actual work completed, or are you paying too much too early?
Why this matters
A construction project can lose substantial money through small errors in quantities, rates, specifications and payment assessments.
This is one of the reasons an independent Quantity Surveyor can be valuable before a contractor is appointed and throughout the project.
A QS can independently assess the quantities, rates, scope, valuations and variations so that the property owner has a better basis for making payment decisions.
For anyone currently planning a building project:
Don't only ask, "How much is the contractor charging?"
Ask:
"How was that amount calculated?"
That question can save you a lot of money.
BUILDQUANT ADVISORY LIMITED
Construction Cost & Commercial Advisory
BOQ | Cost Estimating | Tender Analysis | Cost Control | Valuation Review | Commercial Advisory | Remote QS
Measure. Manage. Protect.

One area that is often overlooked when entering into a property or construction transaction is the financial and commercial side of the agreement.

Beyond confirming ownership and title, parties should be clear about what exactly is being purchased or constructed, the agreed scope, payment milestones, specifications, completion requirements and how variations or additional costs will be handled.

For construction projects in particular, it is important that payment obligations are linked to clearly defined stages of work or measurable deliverables. This can reduce disputes where one party believes substantial work has been completed while the other disagrees on the value of work done.

It is also useful to ensure that quotations, BOQs, specifications and contractual documents are consistent with one another before work begins.

Legal protection and proper cost/commercial documentation should therefore work together. A legally sound agreement is much stronger when the financial obligations and scope of work are also clearly defined.

One mistake I believe deserves more attention is starting construction without establishing a realistic cost plan and proper scope of work.

Many clients focus on getting the lowest contractor quotation, but a low initial quotation does not necessarily mean a low final project cost.

Before construction begins, the client should have clarity on:

• The drawings and scope of work
• Quantities and specifications
• Material requirements
• Labour and construction costs
• Preliminaries and other project costs
• Allowance for legitimate variations and unforeseen items

Another important mistake is making payments without properly relating them to the actual work completed and materials incorporated into the project.

A proper cost-control process can help the client identify over

A very useful thread.

One area I think is often overlooked in building projects is cost control from the beginning of the project, not only when the money has already been spent.

Before construction starts, the client should have a reasonably detailed cost breakdown covering quantities, specifications, labour, materials, preliminaries and other project-related costs.

During construction, the actual work done and materials used should then be compared against the original budget. This makes it easier to identify cost overruns, unnecessary expenditure and variations early.

In my experience, asking only “How much will the building cost?” is not enough.

A better question is:

“What is included in that cost, how was it calculated, and how will the cost be controlled throughout the project?”

Looking forward to learning from the experienced professionals and property owners on this thread.