Time Penalties for Contractor

[Lee S.]

Has anyone done a contract with a contractor that includes time penalties?  Example, Bid says job will be done in 8 weeks, after 8 weeks the contractor starts losing $500 a week.  looking for a way to keep contractors on track and not have them slowly get less motivated to finish a job as it moves along costing me money in holding costs etc.

[David Faulkner]

Good luck enforcing such a contract. What is more likely to happen IMO is if the contractor gets too behind on payments/time, they will just walk from the unfinished job. You don't want contractors getting either ahead or behind on payments. Honestly, it has been a constant struggle finding and keeping good contractors ... if they are good, they don't necessarily stay good. You may have better luck with an incentive as in they get a bonus of $X/week for finishing early, but then you'd need to closely supervise to ensure that they are not cutting corners to get to the finish line quicker to get the bonus.