Non-residential construction projects typically involve a large number of parties and a
complicated "pyramid" of contractual relationships. At the top of the project an owner or
developer commonly employs a head contractor, who employs specialist contractors, who
employ subcontractors, who finally employ workers and material suppliers. Funds for the
project are fed in at the top and are intended to trickle down to those at the bottom.
However, evidence indicates that this often does not happen and that those at the bottom -
most significantly subcontractors - suffer substantial losses.
Many countries attempt to reduce subcontractors' losses through legislative intervention.
The Canadian common law provinces apply both a statutory "builder's lien", which allows
an unpaid subcontractor to register a charge against construction land, and supplementary
holdback and trust requirements. By contrast, New South Wales, Australia and the United
Kingdom apply a "quick and dirty" form of adjudication in an attempt to reduce the delays in
payment disputes. New Zealand is currently investigating the form of legislation that it
should enact and has modelled the Construction Contracts Bill on New South Wales
adjudication measures.
This thesis examines the Canadian, New South Wales and United Kingdom systems for
protecting subcontractors, as well as the New Zealand Construction Contracts Bill. It
describes these different systems, and applies Cooter and Ulen's perfect contract analysis in
an attempt to compare them. It concludes that the New South Wales approach is the most
favourable, particularly because of its attempts to reform areas of the construction industry
beyond just the problems that subcontractors face. However, it also notes that this approach
has very high transaction costs, to such an extent that some proposed reforms may never
come to fruition. It therefore recommends that New Zealand take a cautious approach in
copying these measures. In addition, the thesis recommends that New Zealand researchers
take more time to examine North American builder's lien systems. Protecting construction
subcontractors is a complicated issue and the best solution for New Zealand will result from
a careful consideration of the many different systems, both before any legislation is enacted
and afterwards.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/11976 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Baas, Susan Catherine |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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