building work and tenders - help pls!

[ClaireClaire]

Hello all,

Not really a family room issue, but lots of people in here have experience with building works, so maybe one of you can help...

So we have had a whole load of works done on a building I'm associated with.

This particular chunk of work has cost around ?30K - there is another chunk coming which will cost around ?150K.

We have a surveyor managing the project - he put together specification and put it out to tender. 4 companies tendered for the work.

We have now been billed an amount greater than the amount specified in the tender.

Certain issues have come up which may have involved more work than they expected, however no contingency was made for these items. Contingency was made for other possibilities which did not arise.

I have 2 questions

1. Is it allowable for the contractor to bill a higher amount than was tendered?

2. Is it standard practice to be flexible with the part of the budget allowed for contingency? That is, say ?1000 contingency was made for floors; and when the work was done, no extra work was required on the floors, but it turned out that extra work was required on the windows. Is it standard practice to allow the contingency to be used for a different item?

Any help appreciated

thank you

Claire