Your client refuses to sign the change order

If the client won't sign, the change isn't agreed, and the safest move is to leave that work alone until it is. Everything else on this page is about getting to a yes or a clear no without a fight.

A contractor posted a familiar one: the client asked for extra work, got the change order, and wouldn't sign it. The usual next moves are to do the work anyway and hope, or to argue about it on site. Both end badly. Do it unsigned and the client can later say they never approved it, which is exactly what another thread is about. At the far end of that road is a builder who walked off a house 95% finished, asking for $56,000 in change orders the owner said were never approved. Nobody could prove what had been agreed, so nobody got what they were owed.

Find out what the no is about

A client who won't sign usually has one of three reasons, and each needs a different answer.

• The price surprised them. Show what's in it: materials, hours, the trade you have to bring back. Offer a smaller version if there is one.
• They don't think it's needed. Show the photo of what you found and say what happens if it's left. If they still say no, write that down and have them sign that they were told and declined. One electrician whose client turned down a $75 fix for open splices in the attic wanted exactly that on paper, and he was right to.
• They think it was already included. Go back to the contract and the plans together. If the scope is genuinely unclear, splitting the difference may be cheaper than winning.

Don't do the work on a handshake

A change done without a yes in writing is a change you'll argue about when it's time to pay, because by then the money left on the job is the only thing either of you can hold. If the job can't go on without the change, say so in writing: "We're stopped on the bathroom floor until the subfloor change is decided." A pause with a clear reason is easier to explain later than a bill nobody agreed to.

Make no a real answer

A declined change is a fine outcome. Record it: what you offered, the price, the date they said no. If the client changes their mind next week, you price it again. If they never do, you have the record that the work was offered and turned down, which matters if a problem shows up later in the area you were asked to leave alone.

Set it up before the next job

Put one sentence in the contract that every change is agreed in writing, with its price and days, before the work. Say it out loud at the first meeting too, so the first change order isn't a surprise. The remodeling contract checklist covers it, and the change order form shows the client the new total, which takes some of the sting out of the extra.

This is general information, not legal advice. States differ on what a home improvement contract and its changes must contain. Check with your state’s contractor licensing board or an attorney.