Ann Minogue鈥檚 recent article 鈥淵ou know it makes sense鈥� (27 May, page 47) listed the wholly unilateral benefits of the new British Property Federation form of consultancy agreement compared with the forms of the Association of Consulting Engineers, the RIBA and the RICS.

In my experience these are rarely used anyway 鈥� the majority of our clients (major housebuilders, design-and-build contractors and the like) have their own standard forms that, perhaps unsurprisingly, are written in terms heavily in their own interests rather than those of the consultant.

However, at the insistence of our insurers, we have persuaded many of our clients to include net contribution and liability limitation clauses in their agreement forms. After all, what is the benefit to the client of having an agreement that takes the consultant outside the terms of his indemnity insurance?

Minogue says the response of the professional institutions to the omission of net contribution and liability limitation clauses in the new document is 鈥渦tterly predictable鈥� (that is, they are very unhappy) but hopes that their members might view it 鈥渕ore pragmatically鈥�. Well, if our insurers and our institutions say we should not sign up, then we can鈥檛 and we won鈥檛! We can鈥檛 be more pragmatic than that. Surely the institutions鈥� representatives on the drafting committee explained the implications of all this 鈥� unless they weren鈥檛 represented or consulted.

It is to be hoped that full discussions will now take place between all interested parties, that good sense will eventually prevail, and that the issues of net contribution and limited liability will be fairly and reasonably dealt with and included in a revised version.

Minogue鈥檚 enthusiastic support for the document is of course utterly predictable, as it turns out she helped to draft it.

Colin Toms, Colin Toms & Partners Consulting Engineers

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