The documents are written by the other side
Your contract, your specification and your progress claims are all drafted by people whose interests are not identical to yours. That does not make them dishonest. It makes them one-sided.
Independent engineering review · Western Australia
Your builder sends you documents. I tell you what they actually say.
Independent review of contracts, drawings, progress claims and defect reports for people building in Perth and across WA — by a civil engineer who has spent his career standing on one side of a project. Never the builder's.
- A written opinion in plain English, usually within three business days
- A fixed fee, agreed before any work starts
- One side only — I will not take work from your builder on your project
Reviews are carried out personally by Dima Berkovich, Civil Engineer, Technion graduate, on the Israeli Register of Engineers and Architects since 2017.
Read this first
What this is — and what it isn't
I am a civil engineer registered in Israel, not in Western Australia. I do not attend site, I do not certify works, and I do not sign anything that a WA-registered practitioner must sign.
What I do is read what you have been handed — the contract, the drawings, the specification, the progress claim, the defect report — and tell you in plain English what it says, what is missing from it, and what to ask before you sign or pay.
Where something needs a local registered practitioner — a building surveyor, a structural certifier, a site inspection — I will say so. Often the most useful thing I give you is the exact list of what to ask them for.
Why bother
Three reasons an outside reading pays for itself
The expensive decisions happen early
By the time a problem is visible, the cheap moment to have caught it has usually passed. Almost everything worth catching is catchable on paper, months before it is catchable on site.
A second opinion is cheap compared to the alternative
The cost of having someone read your contract properly is a rounding error against the cost of a variation you did not need to accept, or a dispute you did not need to have.
What I review
Six things worth a second pair of eyes
Each one is a fixed-fee piece of work. You can start with one and stop there.
Contract and specification review
The building contract and the specification decide most of what you will argue about later. They are written by the builder's side, and the gaps in them are rarely accidental.
- What is actually included, and what has been left as a provisional or prime cost sum
- Allowances that look like prices but are not
- How variations are priced once work has started, when you have no leverage left
Drawing and design review
Drawings from different consultants are meant to agree with each other. Very often they don't, and the clash is discovered on site at the worst possible moment.
- Whether the architectural, structural and services drawings describe the same building
- Levels, falls and drainage — the single most common source of expensive rework
- Whether what is drawn can actually be built in the order the programme assumes
Progress claims and variations
A progress claim is a statement of how much of your building exists. It is worth checking against the building, not against the schedule.
- Whether the stage claimed has genuinely been reached
- Variations: is this a real change, or something that was always in the contract
- Whether the same work is appearing twice under different descriptions
Defect reports — a second opinion
An inspection report can list forty items without telling you which three matter. I read the report you already paid for and tell you how to read it.
- Which items are structural and which are finish
- Which will get worse on their own, and which will not
- What is missing from the report and should have been looked at
Handover preparation
Handover is the last moment when the builder still needs something from you. What you do not raise then becomes your problem.
- A checklist built from your drawings and specification, not a generic one
- Which documents and certificates you should be given, and should not accept without
- How to record what is outstanding so it survives the handover
Off-the-plan purchase review
Buying off the plan means buying a description. The description is the only thing you can hold them to.
- What the finishes schedule actually commits the developer to
- Substitution clauses — how far the final product can legally drift from the brochure
- Tolerances on area, and what happens if the apartment is delivered smaller
How it works
Three steps, no retainer
Send me what you have
Contract, drawings, specification, claim, report — whatever the question is about. PDF, photos of paper, a shared folder; it does not matter. If you are not sure what is relevant, send more.
A short call
Twenty to thirty minutes to understand what you are worried about and what decision you are facing. Perth afternoon is Israel morning, so this is easier than it sounds.
A written opinion
In plain English: what the documents say, what is missing, what I would ask, and what I would not sign without. Usually within three business days. Fixed fee, agreed before I start.
Questions
The ones worth asking before you engage anyone
Are you registered as an engineer in Western Australia?
No. I am registered in the Israeli Register of Engineers and Architects and have been since 2017. I do not hold myself out as a WA-registered engineer, I do not certify work, and I do not take on anything that WA law reserves for a registered local practitioner. What I provide is an independent professional review of documents, as an advisor to you.
Can you inspect my house or my site?
Not in person. For a physical inspection you need someone local, and I will tell you what to ask them to look at. What I can do is review the report they produce, which is often where the real value is — a report is only as useful as your ability to read it.
You work to Israeli standards. How does that help me in Perth?
Concrete, drainage falls, waterproofing details and construction sequencing behave the same way everywhere; the reference numbers differ, the physics does not. Where a question turns on a specific Australian Standard or on the National Construction Code, I will say that it needs a local check rather than guess. I would rather hand you a precise question than a confident wrong answer.
How quickly will I get something back?
A written opinion usually within three business days of receiving the documents. If you are facing a deadline — a payment due, a contract to sign — say so and I will tell you honestly whether I can meet it.
How are you paid?
A fixed fee per review, quoted after I have seen the documents and before I start work. Not an open-ended hourly rate. If the scope turns out to be larger than it looked, I come back to you before doing the work, not after.
What if I just need one question answered?
Then ask it. Not everything needs a formal review, and if a short answer is genuinely enough I will say so rather than invent a scope of work.
Contact
Send me the documents and the question
Tell me what you are facing and what you have to decide. I will tell you whether I can help, and what it would cost, before any work starts.