DIM Engineering Independent review · Western Australia

Scope of work

What I review, and what you get back

Every item below is a self-contained piece of work with a fixed fee. There is no package and no retainer; you can use one of these once and never come back.

01 · Before you sign

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
  • Progress payment stages, and whether they track real progress or front-load the builder
  • What the specification leaves to be decided later, and by whom

02 · Before construction, and when drawings change

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
  • Revisions: what changed between issues, and whether anyone told you

03 · Every time an invoice arrives

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
  • What to photograph, and from where, before you pay

04 · When you have a report and don't know how worried to be

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
  • How to turn a list into a written demand a builder has to answer

05 · Before practical completion

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

06 · Before you commit to something that does not exist yet

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
  • Timing, sunset clauses and what they mean for you

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.

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.

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