Primary Responsibility to the Original Contractor
Applicable to City-Ordered Construction Projects
From now on, in construction projects commissioned by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, if a serious defective construction occurs, the primary contractor must immediately undertake rework.
On the 5th, the city announced that it will revise the "Special Conditions for Construction Contracts of Seoul Metropolitan Government" and issue related regulations with this content. The "Special Conditions for Construction Contracts of Seoul Metropolitan Government" is a document that must be attached when signing construction contracts commissioned by the city and holds contractual effect.
The city explained, "This revision of the special conditions was promoted to prevent delays in rework caused by shifting responsibility between the primary contractor and subcontractors when serious defective construction occurs during the construction process, thereby preventing additional accidents and ensuring citizen safety." Here, "serious defective construction" refers to cases where intentional or negligent defective construction causes significant damage to structurally important parts.
Construction projects commissioned by the city will be subject to the revised special conditions for construction contracts, and construction businesses will decide whether to participate in bidding with prior knowledge of these conditions.
To codify the primary contractor's obligation for rework, the city has been conducting administrative procedures since early this year, including legal consultation, administrative notice and opinion collection, and review by the Regulatory Reform Committee regarding the revision of the special conditions. Through prior administrative notices, minor issues that do not require rework are to be addressed by repair or reinforcement methods in consultation with the commissioning agency. Regarding cost handling, cases recognized as force majeure or where the contracting party is not responsible have also been reflected after collecting industry opinions.
Additionally, when revising the special conditions for construction contracts, the city also revised related laws and regulations (administrative rules), such as the "Standards for Local Government Bidding and Contract Execution," and updated articles and appendices accordingly.
Meanwhile, to achieve a "Safe Seoul without Defective Construction," the city is promoting three sectors and eight core tasks presented in the "Seoul-type Construction Innovation Measures." In the public construction sector, a new bidding guideline standard has been established to apply a penalty (-15 points) when companies with serious defective construction participate in large-scale turnkey or technical bidding projects commissioned by the city. The "construction site video recording management," which can supplement the gap in on-site supervision by inspectors, has been expanded to all public facility construction sites costing over 100 million KRW. Furthermore, to strengthen inspection and quality control of major construction types, the city is reviewing measures to increase the proportion of on-site resident inspectors during the review of construction management plans.
In the private construction sector, to secure the independence of inspectors, the city has implemented the "Public Deposit System" for inspection fees starting this month and established the "Structural Safety Expert Committee Review and Operation Standards" to prepare structural safety verification standards for private building construction.
Im Chun-geun, Director of Construction Technology Policy at Seoul City, said, "Through this revision of the special conditions for construction contracts, the primary contractor's sense of responsibility for site management will increase, construction quality and safety will be secured, and it is expected to contribute to eradicating defective construction throughout construction projects." He added, "We will continue efforts to realize a 'Zero Defective Construction Seoul' in the future."
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