Construction Law (QSB 4414)

Lecturer: Sr. Lim Sek Cheon

Objectives

• To understand the general principles on the formation of a contract and remedies in the event of breach.
• To know more about the roles and liabilities of the professionals in construction industry in relation to professional negligence and the use of collateral contract.
• To understand more on laws that relating to the payments, constractual claims and interpretation rules of ambiguity found in documents in construction industry.
• To understand the laws relating land and construction industry with regards to National Land Code, Street, Drainage and Building Act, Uniform Building By-Law, etc.
• To have better understanding regarding the principles and procedures of litigation, arbitration, adjudication and other alternative dispute resolution stated by the Malaysian Government and Standard Form of Contract.

Assignment

There are two assignments which are Seminar and Loss & Expense Assessment.

Seminar

We were assigned two in a group to carry out seminar about the lecture. My partner is Kavitha Manipala and we carried out the seminar about Contractual Claims. The purpose of the seminar is to train us to speak in public. This will helps us a lot in future when we are working.

Loss & Expense Assessment

We carried out this assignment with a group of 10 persons where we act as consultants assessing the contractor's application for loss and expense claim. We assessed the applications based on the Conditions of Contract and Principles of Laws relating to remedies and damages due to breach of contract. This helps us to identify, explain and distinguish the various laws related to the construction industry including land law and construction statutes by demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the principles in law, conditions of contract and the applicable statutes. We also need to provide evidence of reasoned advice in relation to contractual claims and interpretation of any discrepancies of various contract documents.

 

Learning Outcomes

This module helps to better understanding towards the various laws ad its applications related to construction industry. Besides that, I learnt that every dispute has different methods of resolution, and principles to apply in the dispute varies. We must adopt a systematic approach to analyse the disputes. By having the seminar and the group assignment, its enhanced my knowledge on the matters that involving contractual claims and its assessment. Different interpretation can be done by different individual regarding the construction laws, however it must be done in fair and reasonable.