The module on acceptance deals with the date: when it happens, what it triggers, and why it is disputed. It leaves aside what appears on the minute next to the date, and which decides what follows just as much: the reservations. On a large project, acceptance without reservations is a statistical rarity; the norm is a list of outstanding items, sometimes a few dozen, sometimes several thousand on an industrial complex. That list is treated as an end-of-project formality when it is a legal act allocating risks.
It must first be seen that reserving does not delay acceptance. That is the most frequent misconception, and it is costly both ways. Acceptance with reservations is acceptance: it transfers custody, it starts the statutory warranties running, it ends construction cover on the accepted part, exactly as acceptance without reservations does. A project owner that believes it protects itself by multiplying reservations postpones nothing at all; it obtains only a list of items the contractor must make good, and while it compiles that list, all the switches described in the acceptance module have already occurred.
A reservation nonetheless produces an effect of its own, and that is the one to know: the reserved item leaves the field of statutory warranties to stay in the contractual field of the making-good obligation. An apparent, reserved defect is repaired under the making good of reservations; the same defect, had it not been reserved, being apparent at acceptance, would have been covered by the acceptance and the contractor released from it. Reserving therefore protects, but narrowly and on condition of being precise, since a vague reservation reserves nothing.
The symmetry is brutal and deserves stating plainly: what was apparent and was not reserved is lost. Acceptance purges apparent defects. A defect visible on the day of inspection, which a normally attentive examination would have revealed, and which does not appear in the minute, can no longer be claimed on that basis. The whole question then becomes the word apparent, which does not mean visible to a layman's eye but detectable by a normally diligent project owner, possibly assisted. On an industrial complex, the boundary between apparent and hidden moves according to whether the project owner was assisted by a professional, which is a paradox: better advised, it is deemed to have had to see more.
The articulation with insurance is the point this course makes visible and which escapes contract lawyers. Making good a reservation is not a loss: it is performance of a contractual obligation, and no policy funds it. Damage caused during that making good, however, is one, and it typically comes under the maintenance period described in module two, in the narrow form covering damage caused by the contractor returning to perform its obligations. One intervention therefore produces two regimes: the cost of making good for the contractor, the damage caused while doing it for the insurer.
A calendar consequence is added and it is often decisive. Clearing reservations conditions the release of retention or of the corresponding bond, and it marks the start of periods the module on notification described. A project whose reservations drag on for eighteen months therefore lets run in parallel warranties whose periods elapse, retention tied up, and open items whose classification, apparent or hidden, hardens with passing time. The reservations list is not a dead document: it is a meter.
What must be done comes down to three drafting requirements, and they arise on the day of inspection. Describe each reservation by an observed fact and a place, never by an assessment: a crack of such a type at such a point, not finishing defects to be reviewed, since the second formulation allows neither knowing what is reserved nor establishing that it is cleared. Date and sign jointly, failing which the list is enforceable against nobody. And distinguish on the document what is a making-good item from what is a defect liable to worsen, because the second calls for a notification to the insurer on top of an entry on the list, and those two acts have neither the same addressee nor the same deadline.
An industrial complex is accepted on March 12 with 640 reservations. The project owner was assisted by a design supervisor and an inspection body during the walkdowns. Among the reservations, under the waterproofing package, appears the entry 'roof finishing defects, to be made good'. Twenty-two months later, water ingress damages a technical floor and equipment for 1.4 million euros; expert examination establishes a defective waterproofing upstand at the parapet base, visible from the roof at the time of acceptance. Separately, while making good another reservation in September, the contractor drilled through a duct and caused 90,000 euros of water damage. The 5% retention, that is 1.1 million, has not been released, 180 reservations remaining open. How are the burdens allocated?
Three questions, and the first decides the largest. The upstand defect was visible from the roof, therefore apparent, and the reservation that could have covered it says 'roof finishing defects, to be made good'. That formulation is the heart of the file: it describes neither a fact nor a place, and it allows neither knowing what was reserved nor establishing that it is cleared. A vague reservation reserves nothing. The item was therefore apparent and not validly reserved, and acceptance purges it: the 1.4 million cannot be claimed on that basis. The assistance worsens the project owner's position instead of improving it, which is the paradox to know: advised by a design supervisor and an inspection body, it is deemed to have had to see more, and apparent is assessed more widely. The September water damage falls under another regime and is more favorable: it is not the making good itself, which no policy funds, but damage caused during the making good, which is exactly the object of the narrow form of the maintenance period. That leaves the retention: it has been tied up for twenty-two months by 180 open reservations, and the project owner reads that as protection. It is also a carrying cost for the contractor, and a meter running, since each month that passes hardens the classification of the remaining items and brings closer the expiry of warranties that slowness does not extend.
- 01Reserving does not delay acceptance: acceptance with reservations transfers custody, starts the statutory warranties and ends construction cover, exactly as acceptance without reservations does.
- 02What was apparent and not reserved is lost: acceptance purges apparent defects, and apparent is assessed more widely where the project owner was assisted.
- 03A vague reservation reserves nothing: describe an observed fact and a place, never an assessment, failing which one can neither know what is reserved nor establish that it is cleared.
- 04Making good a reservation is not a loss and no policy funds it; damage caused DURING the making good is one, and comes under the narrow form of the maintenance period.
- 05The reservations list is a meter: it ties up retention, lets warranty periods run that slowness does not extend, and hardens over time the classification of open items.