Acceptance of works
With acceptance the client declares that the works are in essence in accordance with the contract. This is not a formal end point but a turning point: until then the contractor carries the risk for their work, afterwards the warranty phase begins. Accepted does not mean free of defects – it means that the defects found are documented and classified.
What acceptance shifts
- Benefit and risk pass to the client.
- The notification periods for apparent defects start to run.
- The burden of proof shifts – within the notification period it usually rests with the contractor.
- The final payment becomes due in principle.
Because several periods attach to this single moment, it is also more than a marker at the end of the schedule.
Substantial and minor defects
Not every defect prevents acceptance. Practice distinguishes: a defect is substantial if it appreciably restricts fitness for use, breaches safety requirements or technical standards, affects a central contractual obligation, or carries considerable economic weight. In that case the works are not ready for acceptance.
Minor defects – small surface damage or missing labelling – do not prevent acceptance. They are recorded in the protocol together with a binding deadline for rectification. Outstanding work is a separate matter again: a service not yet provided is not a defect.
Acceptance in the schedule
In scheduling terms acceptance is not a single point but a chain of tasks with durations of their own: internal walk-through, pre-acceptance, defect rectification, re-inspection, final acceptance. Setting only the acceptance date leaves everything before it unplanned – and that time falls at the end of the project, where reserves have usually been used up already.
A further distinction is between partial acceptance of clearly delimited parts of the works – structure, facade or handover of apartments in stages – and final acceptance of the whole. Partial acceptance triggers the periods for its section only. In the schedule this means a project can already be in warranty in one part while construction continues elsewhere.
A maintained, versioned schedule programme records when each section was completed and accepted. Where defects appear later, that is the basis for assigning the moment to a section. Legal assessment of the individual case belongs with specialist advice in any event.