Ask any condominium manager about a project that went sideways, and the story follows the same arc. Quotes come back with a wide spread. The awarded contractor begins issuing change orders within weeks. The scope expands, the budget moves, and by closeout nobody can reconstruct how the numbers drifted so far from the original approval. The board is left explaining the outcome to owners and wondering whether they had the full picture at the outset.

In most cases, the contractor is not the problem. Neither is the budget. The failure occurred before the first quote was requested. The procurement sequence was wrong.

Condominium procurement is often treated as a single process. Identify the need, issue an RFQ to three contractors, compare the numbers, and award the job. That logic works for commodity purchases and routine services with self-evident scope. It breaks down on technical repair, remediation, and capital projects, where the RFQ often goes out before anyone has properly defined what is being bought.

A common misconception I encounter at the board and property manager level is that engineers and contractors are interchangeable vendors, just priced differently. They are not. Engineers define scope. Contractors price and execute it. Reversing that order is where projects start going wrong.

Issuing an RFQ before an engineering assessment is like asking three builders to price a custom home without drawings. Each prices a different version based on different assumptions. The quotes are not comparable, even when they appear so on paper. Conservative contractors price for the worst case and come in high. Aggressive ones price thin to win and recover margin through change orders after award. Either way, the corporation does not get what it thought it was buying.

Engaging a professional engineer before going to market is not overhead. It is the step that makes the rest of the procurement process defensible. The engineer’s role is to investigate existing conditions, determine the root cause rather than the most visible symptom, set performance criteria, and produce a scope document that contractors can price against a common baseline.

Consider a building with recurring water infiltration in the underground parking garage. Without an engineering assessment, the manager requests quotes from waterproofing contractors based on a short description. One proposes crack injection. Another recommends replacing the traffic topping and membrane. A third recommends drainage upgrades. Each proposal is internally coherent. None can be meaningfully compared because none is based on a shared understanding of what is actually failing, and one or more may be solving the wrong problem entirely. The engineering assessment answers the question the RFQ cannot. Is water entering through failed construction joints, cracks in the slab, a compromised membrane, deficient drainage, or some combination? Once the source is identified, the scope becomes specific, and the quotes coming back are pricing the same job.

Another pattern that causes persistent trouble is the solution-driven scope, where the RFQ specifies a product or method before the underlying problem has been diagnosed. These scopes usually come from a contractor recommendation during a site visit, a repair that worked elsewhere, or an assumption about what the fix should be. They lock the corporation into an approach before anyone has confirmed it is appropriate, and quietly eliminate competition because only contractors who install that product will bid. If the specified solution does not address the actual root cause, the corporation pays for a repair that does not resolve the issue, and the problem returns within a few years. I have seen reserve fund dollars spent twice on the same deficiency for exactly this reason.

A well-constructed engineering scope is performance-based. It describes what the finished work must achieve, not how to achieve it. That keeps competition open, allows contractors to apply their expertise, and lets the corporation select on value rather than on the lowest number attached to a scope that may not be the right one.

Phasing the Engagement to Manage Cost

Boards often worry that bringing in an engineer early will add cost and delay the project. Both are usually resolved by structuring the engagement rather than skipping it. The first phase covers the condition assessment, root cause analysis, and scope document that can be issued with the RFQ. Cost is modest relative to the construction work, and the board sees exactly what it is getting before committing construction dollars.

The second phase, covering contract administration and construction review, is quoted separately and approved once a contractor is selected. Oversight should scale to the complexity and risk of the project. For straightforward repairs with an experienced contractor, a periodic site review may be enough. For building envelope work, structural repairs, fire protection upgrades, or anything where the consequences of poor execution are difficult to reverse, active engineering involvement during construction is not optional in any practical sense.

When the sequence is right, bids are comparable because they are priced against the same scope. The lowest bid reflects actual cost efficiency rather than a contractor who excluded work that will reappear as a change order. The board approves expenditures on independent technical analysis rather than a vendor’s description of the problem and its solution.

There is also a governance dimension that gets less attention than it should. Condominium directors hold a fiduciary responsibility under the Condominium Act. Procurement decisions grounded in independent engineering analysis are easier to defend to owners, auditors, and counsel if a project ends up in dispute. A record showing that the scope was developed by a qualified engineer, competitively tendered, and administered to specification tells a clear story about how the corporation is being managed.

Effective procurement is not a race to collect three quotes. It is the work of building the conditions under which those quotes can be meaningfully compared and acted on with confidence. The sequence matters. Getting it right is one of the most practical steps a manager can take to protect the corporation’s resources and support sound board decision-making.<

Sam Soltani is a highly accomplished professional with extensive experience in the engineering and consulting fields. Sam is the founder and president of Trace Consulting Group Ltd. (TCG) since its inception in 2016, Trace Fire Group Ltd. (TFG) as of 2022 and Trace Maintenance Group Ltd. (TMG) as of 2025.

www.traceconsultinggroup.com

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