How much does a delayed practical completion cost?

As a rule of thumb, contract value multiplied by your cost of capital, divided by 52, per week. On a $40M project at 7% that is roughly $54,000 a week in holding cost alone, before disputes or settlement effects.

Why do construction handovers slip?

Accumulation rather than catastrophe: late inspections, fragmented defect registers, certification items tracked in inboxes instead of on the programme, and defects closed on a subcontractor's say-so that reopen before PC.

When should a developer bring in independent close-out help?

Ideally 12 to 16 weeks before the PC target, while defects are cheap to fix and trades are still on site. A fixed-fee health check can quantify the position in two days if the window is shorter.

Guides · Guide

What a late handover actually costs

Late handovers get discussed in weeks. They should be discussed in dollars. Here is the maths, where the money goes, and the three controls that protect the date.

The maths nobody puts on the programme

A late handover is usually discussed in weeks. It should be discussed in dollars. The holding cost of slippage is simple finance: contract value × cost of capital ÷ 52 per week. On a $40 million project funded at 7 per cent, that is roughly $54,000 a week — before a single dispute, claim or discounted settlement. You can run your own numbers in the close-out cost calculator.

Where the money actually goes

Finance on the whole project. Every week past the target date, the full facility keeps costing money while producing nothing new.
Retention locked on both sides. Five per cent of contract value sitting hostage to an argument about whose list is right.
Settlement risk. Off-the-plan purchasers looking for a reason at valuation time will find one in a defect-ridden handover story.
The dispute premium. Once lawyers hold the registers, the cost curve stops being linear.
The next project. Reputations in a small industry are set by the last five per cent of the job.

Why handovers slip

Rarely because of one catastrophe, almost always because of accumulation: defects found late because inspections happened late; registers split across spreadsheets so nobody trusted the total; certification items sitting in inboxes until they became the critical path; and rectification "closed" on a subcontractor's say-so, reopening a week before PC. Each item is small. The sum is the slip.

The three controls that protect the date

One cost-coded register from day one. Every defect located, photographed, priced, owned and dated. Exposure becomes a number that trends, not a mood in a meeting.
A certification schedule with owners. Fire, essential services and penetrations tracked like the critical-path items they are.
Independent verification. Reinspection before anything closes, by someone with no interest in calling the job finished early.

That is the regime described in the service, and it is visible working with sample data in the system.

If the date is already at risk

The earlier the intervention, the cheaper. Twelve weeks out, a proper regime prevents the slip. Six weeks out, a fixed-fee Health Check quantifies the gap fast while there is still time to act. At PC, independent eyes are damage control — still worth having, but the slip has been paid for by then. The pattern is consistent: the cost of looking early is trivial next to the cost of finding out late.

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