CHOP | Chapter 2.3.10 | Page 6                 

A Request for Information (RFI) is useful throughout the design and construction of a building project as a tool for the owner, architect, contractor or other party to request information from each other that cannot readily be obtained through research, document review, or other reasonable means. During the construction phase of a project, the general contractor, who is unable to find the information through review of the contract documents, often seeks information from the architect or the architect’s consultants. The RFI is a procedure for the contractor to request clarifications when the intent of the contract documents is:

• unclear, 
  
• incorrect, or, 
  
• information is missing.

The architect (sometimes with the assistance of consultants) issues Supplemental Instructions to clarify or interpret the contract documents. Supplemental Instructions can also be issued to provide direction to the contractor concerning a problem which may have resulted during the course of construction. If the Supplemental Instruction involves changes to the contract price or to the contract time, the architect should issue a Change Order or Change Directive. 

In all cases, it is the responsibility of the architect to provide the information or answer, with input from consultants when appropriate, either by issuing a Supplemental Instruction if there is no change to the Contract Price or Contract Time or, if changes are necessary, by initiating a Proposed Change, followed by either a Change Directive or a Change Order.

Some general contractors abuse the RFI process by issuing an excessive number of unnecessary or “frivolous” RFIs. There are several possible reasons for this:

• to ask the architect is easier than taking the time to find information readily available within the contract documents;
  
• to attempt to transfer to the architect the contractor’s responsibility for acts or omissions (refer to the General Conditions, GC1.3.2 and GC1.3.3 of RAIC Document 6, 2002);
  
• to imply non-existent errors or omissions in the documents to support claims for additional work;
  
• to set up circumstances to support subsequent unjustified delay claims; or
  
• to discredit the architect’s competence while, at the same time, promoting the contractor’s mastery of the construction process.
  

In order to ensure that the architect will be reimbursed for the expense of responding to unnecessary RFIs issued by the general contractor, consideration should be given to adding the following Supplementary Condition to the CCDC 2 General Conditions, revising GC 5.8 Withholding of Payment to state:

The architect may determine that certain RFIs issued by the contractor are unnecessary and shall, in responding to such unnecessary RFIs, give the reasons for the determination in each case;

• if the contractor continues to issue unnecessary RFIs, the architect, after having identified a minimum of five [for example] RFIs as unnecessary, will invoice the client for the additional administrative cost of responding to each of the subsequent unnecessary RFIs;
  
• the architect will notify the contractor and client each time such an additional administrative cost is charged;
  
• the client shall reimburse the architect for the monthly total of such additional administrative costs; and
  
• the monthly total of such additional administrative costs shall be charged to the general contractor

by showing the monthly total as a credit on each subsequent Certificate for Payment. This constitutes a change to the contract price and must be handled as a Change Order.