Scope Gap Question Log Checklist

Write down each point where the work of one trade meets the work of another, such as where a new floor finish reaches an existing threshold, and note who has described that junction.

Junctions are where scope goes missing, because each side can reasonably read the boundary as ending just short of the other.

Note every place where a drawing simply stops at a line on the page, and ask what happens on the other side of that line rather than reading it as unchanged.

A line on a drawing usually marks the limit of what somebody was asked to draw, which is not the same as the limit of what has to be done.

List the rooms or areas described as untouched, and ask what still has to happen in them because of the work going on next door.

Being outside the works is not the same as being unaffected, and access, protection and reinstatement in those rooms often belong to nobody.

Ask which party is responsible for the surface a new element lands on, since a finish and the substrate beneath it are frequently described by different people.

Whether a substrate is suitable to receive a finish is a judgement for the qualified installer and the material manufacturer, not something to settle by looking at it.

Record where pipes, cables or ducts run through or past the work, and ask who has accounted for anything that has to be moved, re-supported or re-routed.

Anything involving existing services should be established by the qualified installers concerned rather than assumed from what can be seen.

Note whether the scope stops at the face of the building or continues beyond it, and ask what covers the ground, thresholds and surface water immediately around the work.

The strip of ground just outside new work is a classic orphan, described by the outside trades as inside and by the inside trades as outside.

Read each scope document alongside the others and mark every task that appears in none of them, keeping your marks as questions rather than as conclusions.

Reading documents one at a time hides the gaps, because each one reads as complete on its own terms.

Ask who is responsible for setting out the work and for establishing levels, because it is described so routinely in some documents that others leave it out entirely.

Setting out and levels should be established by the appointed professionals; record who has taken it on rather than working it out yourself.

Note who takes away waste, packaging, offcuts and old materials, and where those go, since removal is assumed far more often than it is written down.

Waste removal is one of the few tasks every trade generates and few describe, and it becomes visible only once the property is full of it.

Ask who provides temporary power, water and lighting during the work, and what is expected to happen while an existing supply is disconnected.

Arrangements for temporary and disconnected supplies must be settled with the qualified installers and the relevant supply undertaking.

Write down which surveys, tests or investigations somebody has mentioned, and ask who is arranging each one rather than assuming it sits with whoever raised it.

A survey mentioned in a meeting acquires no owner unless somebody is named, and its absence is usually noticed at the worst moment.

List everything described as by others in any document, and ask who others actually refers to on this particular project.

By others is a legitimate way of drawing a boundary, but it names nobody, and the work behind the phrase is regularly never picked up.

For each item you are choosing yourself, write down who orders it, who receives it, who stores it and who fits it, since those four roles can sit with four different parties.

Owners tend to think of supply as one act, when in practice it is a chain, and a break anywhere in it stops the fitting.

Ask what happens if an item you supply arrives damaged or incomplete, and who is responsible for noticing that before it is needed.

Responsibility for goods you supply yourself is a matter for your own adviser and the supply terms, not something the fitting party can confirm for you.

Note which items need something prepared before they arrive, such as an opening formed or a supply brought to a position, and ask who is confirming those requirements.

Ask the qualified installer and the supplier what has to be in place behind or beneath an item before it arrives, rather than working it out from a sales description.

Record where each item is to be kept between delivery and fitting, and ask whether the property can actually hold it safely in the meantime.

Large items delivered early end up in the only room that is finished, and the damage that follows belongs to nobody in particular.

Ask who checks that what arrived is what was ordered, and to whom that person reports a difference when they find one.

A difference noticed by somebody with no route to report it is the same as a difference nobody noticed.

Write down which fixings, brackets, trims and connectors come with an item and which have to be obtained separately, since small parts are the usual cause of a stalled fitting.

Nobody writes a scope document about a bracket, and the missing bracket stops the work just as effectively as a missing item.

Ask who is responsible for establishing the condition of what is being kept, and what happens to the scope if it needs work that nobody has allowed for.

The condition of existing construction can only be established by suitably qualified professionals, and should never be inferred from a scope document.

Note which parts of the property nobody has physically been into, and ask whether any part of the scope depends on what is inside them.

Roof voids, underfloor spaces and locked cupboards are regularly written about by people who have never been inside them.

Write down where access for a survey was not possible, and ask what was taken to be the position instead and who carries the consequence if that turns out to be wrong.

A survey with a note about restricted access is telling you exactly where the unresolved questions are, if anybody reads that far.

Ask who arranges any opening up needed to answer a question, who does it, and who puts the surface back afterwards.

Opening up any part of an existing building is work for qualified professionals to direct; agree in writing who arranges it before anybody starts.

Record any part of the existing property that people keep referring to but nobody appears to have measured, and ask whose responsibility that measurement is.

Dimensions repeated confidently in conversation often trace back to a single rough figure that somebody produced early and nobody has revisited.

Ask what happens to the rest of the work when an unexpected condition is found, and who is entitled to give the instruction to carry on.

Instructions to continue after an unexpected discovery should come through the route named in your agreement; take unclear wording to your own legal adviser.

Write down which surfaces will be disturbed and ask, for each one, how far the making good is expected to extend beyond the disturbed area.

Making good stops somewhere, and the point where it stops causes far more disappointment than the quality of the repair itself.

Ask who protects the parts of the property that are staying, what that protection covers and at what point it goes down and comes up.

Protection is straightforward to arrange in advance and impossible to arrange afterwards, which is why it is worth naming an owner for it.

Note where a new finish will meet an old one and ask what that junction is expected to look like, since a change of level or shade there is normal rather than a fault.

Expectations about junctions are almost never written down, so the conversation only happens once somebody is unhappy with the result.

Record what happens to furniture, fittings and belongings in the affected rooms, who moves them, where they go and who is responsible for them once moved.

Responsibility for your belongings during the work should be agreed in writing and checked against your own insurance arrangements.

Ask who cleans at the end, what that cleaning is expected to include, and whether it is the same party that clears the property of surplus materials.

Builders cleaning and household cleaning are different pieces of work, and the gap between them is usually discovered once everybody has left.

Note which decoration is included and where it stops, because painting up to a corner and painting a whole room are two different pieces of work.

Decoration is the last item in the scope and the first to be described loosely, so the edge of it deserves a specific question.

Give every gap its own entry with a plain description of what you observed, rather than gathering several unrelated worries into a single long message.

A message containing several questions usually comes back answering one of them, and the rest quietly disappear from the conversation.

Write each entry as a question about who is responsible, not as a statement that something has been left out of somebody's scope.

Owners are rarely in a position to know that something is missing, and a question invites an explanation where an accusation invites a defence.

Note which document and which part of it prompted the question, so whoever answers can see exactly what you were reading when you wrote it.

Half of apparent gaps are resolved instantly once the answering party can see which version of which document you were looking at.

Record the date you raised each entry and the route you used, since a question asked in passing on site tends not to be treated as having been raised at all.

Ask the appointed professionals which route counts as formally raising a question, and use it for anything that could affect scope.

Keep your own reading of what a document means separate from the words you are quoting, so an answer can correct your reading without turning into a disagreement.

Owners often paraphrase a clause and then defend the paraphrase, which makes a simple clarification much harder than it needs to be.

Mark the entries that would change what somebody has to do before the work reaches that point, so they are not buried among minor queries.

A log where everything looks equally urgent is read as a list of complaints rather than a list of questions needing answers.

Record the answer to each entry in the words used by whoever gave it, and note whether it arrived in writing or was said aloud.

Verbal answers about who is responsible for a piece of work should be confirmed in writing by the party who gave them.

Leave an entry open until a specific party has been named as responsible, rather than closing it because the discussion appeared to reach agreement.

Entries closed on a general reassurance reopen later as a dispute, usually at the point the work is needed.

Note which answers have added work to somebody's scope for the first time, and ask whether the document describing that scope is being changed to say so.

Where an answer adds work to a package, ask the appointed professionals how that becomes part of the written scope.

Watch for answers that move a piece of work rather than resolve it, since a gap handed back and forth between two parties can travel for a very long time.

A moving gap looks like progress in each individual exchange, which is exactly why it survives so many of them.

Keep a short list of entries that nobody has answered at all, and bring that list to the next meeting instead of raising each one separately again.

Unanswered questions are far more visible as a short list than as a series of individually polite follow-up messages.

Review closed entries when the work reaches the area they concerned, because an answer given early is easy to forget by the time it matters on site.

The people carrying out the work are often not the people who answered the question, and nothing carries the answer forward except your log.