Conditions of contract for the appointment of consultants on major building projects.

The CIC Consultants' Contract is printed in two volumes: first, the CIC Conditions, comprising the Form of Agreement, Parts 1-6 and Guidance and secondly Part 7, the CIC Services.

The Consultants' Contract is intended for experienced clients working with experienced consultants on major commercial property developments projects, primarily in the UK. It can be used by either employers or design and build contractors, and any discipline of consultant.

It has been drafted with the aim of striking a fair balance between the interests of the client and the consultant. The objective is to make available a contract which is acceptable in the institutional market, but with which consultants and their insurers are comfortable.

Where the Consultants' Contract is used on a project, it should be used for the appointment of all the consultants. This will mean that all team members are subject to consistent terms, will owe the same duty of care and will be under similar obligations in respect of co-operation, sharing of information, coordination of design and the like. Vitally, the services they are to provide will be fully integrated. When the Services (Part 7) have been assembled for the particular project, all the consultants will have details of the services to be performed by the other team members. (Allocation of the tasks to be performed is most easily done using DefinIT the allocation software package.)

The contract is designed to be flexible enough to fit a range of construction procurement methods, including traditional, design and build and construction management.

Guidance on completion of the contract and on the contract provisions can be found at the back of the CIC Conditions.