Change orders: agreeing the triggers before work starts

A change order is not a failure of planning. On ground nobody could see under, it is an expected event — and the projects that handle it well are the ones that decided the procedure before anybody needed it.

Published by the Land Clearing Authority editorial team · Last revised 2026-07-29 · Editorial policy · Corrections

Who this is for

Owners signing a scope on ground with any unknown beneath it
Anyone who has received an invoice larger than the estimate
People whose project will run long enough for conditions to change

The short answer

Write down what counts as a change. Without a definition, every disagreement becomes a debate about whether something was already included, and both parties can hold that position honestly.

Write down who may authorise one, and in what form. A verbal agreement on site between a crew member and whoever happens to be at the property is how unauthorised work gets done and then billed.

Write down how it will be priced. A rate agreed before the discovery is a rate agreed while neither party knows who it will favour, which is the only time it can be agreed fairly.

And write down the notification rule: the crew stops, tells you the same day, and does not proceed on the changed item until you have said so. That single rule prevents most of the situations this procedure exists for.

What changes the answer

How much of the site could not be inspected before pricing
Whether the parcel has a history that predicts buried material
How long the project will run, and across what weather
Whether you will be present on site regularly
Whether the scope contains allowances or unit rates already

The five triggers worth naming explicitly

These account for the great majority of changes on clearing work. Naming them converts each from an argument into a procedure.

Common triggers and how to treat each
Trigger	Why it arises	Agree in advance
Rock or buried material found	Invisible until the ground is opened	Stop-and-measure procedure plus a rate
Quantity outside the stated assumption	Stem counts and volumes are estimated	A band inside which no change applies
Owner adds scope on site	The machine is there and more is visible	Who may authorise, and in what form
Ground conditions unworkable	Weather changes what is achievable	Stand-down terms and rescheduling
Access proves inadequate	Route constraints found on arrival	Whether protection or a new route is priced
Access damage repair	Route condition changes during the work	The return condition, against photographs

The tolerance band, which prevents trivial changes

Not every deviation should generate paperwork. A project where a slightly higher stem count triggers a change order is a project with an adversarial relationship built into it.

The practical device is a band. State that quantities within a stated range of the assumption carry no change, and only deviations beyond it do. Both parties absorb small variances and neither absorbs a large one.

Where the band sits is a negotiation, and having the conversation before work starts is what makes it a negotiation rather than a confrontation.

Who may authorise, and how

On residential work this is usually straightforward and still worth stating. On commercial work it is essential.

Name the individuals who may authorise a change on your side. State the form — written, including a text message or an email, but recorded rather than spoken. And state that work on a changed item does not begin before that authorisation exists.

The failure mode this prevents is common and involves nobody acting badly: a crew asks a family member or a site employee, gets a reasonable-sounding yes, and does the work. The invoice then arrives for something the person paying never approved.

Pricing agreed before the discovery

The essential asymmetry: after something is found, one party knows it is needed and the other knows it must be done. That is a poor moment to agree a price.

Before work starts, neither party knows whether the rock will be found. A rate agreed then is agreed on genuine uncertainty, which is the fairest basis available.

For each of your named triggers, agree the pricing basis in advance — a unit rate, an hourly rate for the additional work, or a procedure for obtaining a price. It does not need to cover every possibility. Covering the three most likely ones removes most of the exposure.

The record, kept as you go

A change order does not need to be a formal document. It needs to be a record that exists at the time.

What was found or requested, in one sentence
The date and, where relevant, the location on site
Photographs taken at the point of discovery
What was agreed, and by whom on each side
The price or the pricing basis applied
Whether the schedule is affected

What this procedure is not

It is not a legal instrument, and nothing here describes what any agreement means as a matter of law in your state. Contract terms and remedies vary, and a live dispute needs local advice.

It is also not a way to avoid changes. On ground that has been growing untended for years, discovering something is normal and a contractor who reports it is doing the right thing. The procedure exists so that a normal event is handled normally.

What it does is convert the most common source of friction on clearing projects into a sequence both parties agreed to when neither had anything to gain from the answer.

What drives the cost

Cost drivers on this kind of project
Driver	Effect
Extent of pre-bid inspection	Ground nobody could see carries more change risk
Width of the tolerance band	A narrow band generates paperwork; a wide one shifts risk
Pre-agreed rates for likely triggers	Rates agreed early are agreed on genuine uncertainty
Stand-down and rescheduling terms	Weather interruptions have a cost that should be allocated
Access repair obligation	The route’s return condition is a change trigger if undefined

Common mistakes

Signing a scope with no definition of what counts as a change
Leaving authority to approve changes undefined
Agreeing a price after the discovery rather than before
Having no tolerance band, so every small variance escalates
Learning about changes at the end of the job rather than on the day

Questions to ask a contractor

What would you expect to find here that is not in the scope?
What rate would apply if you hit rock, agreed now?
Within what variance do you consider the quantity unchanged?
Who on your crew decides that something is a change?
Will you notify me the same day, before doing the work?

What to do next

List the three most likely triggers on your specific parcel
Agree a pricing basis for each before work starts
Name who may authorise changes, and in what recorded form
Write the stop-and-notify rule into the scope

Questions people actually ask

Are change orders a sign of a bad contractor?

Not on clearing work. Ground that has been untended for years contains things nobody could see, and a contractor who stops and reports is behaving better than one who works around a discovery silently.

Can I refuse a change order?

You can decline the additional work, which may mean the scope changes or the item is left. What you generally cannot do is decline to pay for work you authorised, which is why the authorisation rule matters.

Should the contractor stop work while we discuss it?

On the changed item, yes — that is the point of the notification rule. Work elsewhere on site can usually continue, and agreeing that distinction in advance avoids an unnecessary standstill.

What if a change order arrives at the end of the job?

That is exactly what the same-day notification rule prevents. A change first raised on the final invoice gave you no opportunity to decide, which is why the rule belongs in the scope rather than in a conversation.