On phased residential schemes, the points where one trade’s work meets another are the points where liability becomes ambiguous. A roof leak appearing six months after handover may have originated in roofing installation, in cavity wall detailing, in scaffold tie reinstatement, or in any of the interactions between them. Where the trades were procured separately, the conversation about which contractor’s warranty bears the cost can become slow, contentious and expensive for the developer.
This crossover liability problem is one of the underestimated commercial reasons developers consolidate package procurement with a single specialist group. When the same group carries the scaffold, the roofing and any other adjacent packages, the developer has one warranty conversation rather than three competing ones.
The Globe Group structures its warranty arrangements to reflect this. Across scaffold, roofing, civils and fall protection, the group accepts collective responsibility for defects that arise at the interfaces between its trades. The developer does not have to prove which package caused the defect. The group resolves the internal allocation between its businesses without that conversation reaching the developer.
This matters most for the kinds of defects that genuinely sit at trade interfaces. Damp on the inner face of a cavity wall near a scaffold tie position. Roofing edge details where the scaffold’s last lift abutted the work. Rainwater goods that were installed by the roofer but interact with civils-installed drainage below. Each is a real defect type. Each is a real point of warranty argument when the trades are separately procured.
For schemes where Globe is delivering a single package among others, the group’s documentation discipline still helps the developer manage crossover liability with other trades. The group’s install records, inspection records and signed-off handover certificates are produced in a format that supports the developer’s warranty management process. Where a defect raises an interface question, the group’s records make the conversation faster, not slower.
There is also a pre-emptive aspect. The group’s pre-start coordination process across its delivered packages identifies the interfaces in advance and documents what each trade is responsible for. That documentation becomes the reference point if a defect later raises the question. It is not the same as eliminating the question, but it is the difference between an answerable question and an unanswerable one.
Crossover liability also affects insurance arrangements. The group’s professional indemnity and contractors all-risks cover responds across the group’s businesses for interface defects rather than requiring claims to be allocated to a single business at the moment of notification. For developers managing a residual defects programme over the warranty period, that consolidated cover position is materially simpler than chasing claims across separately insured contractors.
There is a procurement consequence to this. Developers procuring scaffold and roofing as separate packages from different suppliers should be aware that their warranty position at the interface between the two is structurally weaker than it would be under a single supplier. The price advantage of separate competitive tendering carries this offsetting risk cost. Where the risk cost is not priced into the procurement decision, the developer is paying it anyway, just later.
For QSs at tender stage, the practical advice is to consider how trade interfaces are addressed in the warranty conversation. A bidder who has thought through the question and has a documented position on it is a different proposition from a bidder whose warranty is generic. The thinking on interfaces is often a stronger signal of operational maturity than the unit rates.
Single-supplier consolidation at the interface positions is one of the unsung commercial benefits of using a multi-discipline group. It is not the main reason developers consolidate, but it is one of the reasons they tend to stay consolidated once they have done it.
Talk to the Globe Group To discuss crossover liability between trades on phased schemes on your scheme, contact the Globe Group on 01223 890727 or email enquiries@theglobegroup.co.uk.
