Beware! The money paid via progress claims to date can be reclaimed! Just because certification by the Company has been issued and you have been paid the money for your progress claims to date (including variations) this does not mean that the work performed to date is approved
Payment of progress claims is ‘payment on account only and not approval of the work performed’ The Company can subsequently audit the payments and adjust value of work, reclaiming funds already paid to the Contractor right up until the final payment under the Contract. If variations have not been formally approved in accordance with the requirements of the Contract (by issue of documentation like a Variation Order) payment of such variations under progress claims is not approval of the variation. Simply put – just because you have been paid for the variations do not assume they are approved!
Values contained in progress claims need to be representative of the work performed. The risk is if the certification of the progress claim over values the actual work performed and the contractor fails to perform ultimately going into default the Company will have put itself in substantial risk of not recovering such overpayment monies.
