Collateral warranties extend your liability to third parties you have never met, for claims that arise years after practical completion. Do not sign one without reading it.
LazyQS reviews collateral warranties in minutes — flagging onerous obligations, unlimited assignment provisions, insurance requirements, and liability exposure before you execute.
No credit card required. First review is free.
Practical completion is next week. The funder wants signed warranties by Friday. It is 12 pages. Nobody has a tool specifically for reviewing them. So they get signed.
Collateral warranties land at the end of a project when your attention is on handover. There is no time for a proper review. But the liability runs for 12 years from execution.
Reasonable skill and care is the standard you priced for. Fitness for purpose is an absolute warranty that you achieved a specific outcome. One word change. Unlimited exposure.
A warranty to a funder is bad enough. A warranty that can be assigned to anyone without limit — future tenants, subsequent purchasers, management companies — is a claim from a party you have never met, decades later.
12-year PI requirements. Specific minimum indemnity limits. Cover you may not be able to maintain or may not need. Breach of the insurance obligation voids the warranty and triggers a separate claim.
Upload. Analyse. Know your exposure. In under 10 minutes.
PDF or DOCX — however the solicitor sent it. Upload the warranty itself, any schedules, and the associated professional indemnity requirements. LazyQS reads them all together.
LazyQS reads the warranty against market-standard provisions for funders, purchasers, and tenants. It identifies fitness-for-purpose language, step-in rights, assignment provisions, insurance obligations, and net contribution clauses.
A structured risk report with clause references, risk ratings, and recommended amendments. Export as PDF or Excel. Review complete in under 10 minutes with an email notification when ready.
The provisions that extend your liability beyond what you thought you were signing up for.
The word ‘fitness’ in a warranty obligation converts reasonable skill and care into an absolute standard. LazyQS identifies every instance of fitness-for-purpose language, including where it is embedded in definitions rather than stated explicitly.
How many times can the warranty be assigned? To whom? Does assignment require consent? Unlimited assignment to future owners means a claim from a party you have never met, for a defect discovered 11 years after PC.
Who can step in, under what circumstances, and what are your obligations to them? Step-in rights that transfer to a funder midway through a project can fundamentally change your contractual counterparty without triggering a variation.
PI cover requirements, minimum indemnity levels, the period over which cover must be maintained, and what happens if you cannot renew. Obligations you cannot fulfil create a breach from day one.
Does the warranty include a net contribution clause that limits your liability to a fair share? Without one, you could be liable for the full loss even where others were also responsible. We flag when it is absent.
Six years for simple contract, twelve for deed. The limitation period in the warranty and the deed vs agreement distinction. Anything that extends your exposure beyond the period you priced for.
Provisions that extend liability long after practical completion. Every example below was flagged by LazyQS.
CoWa/SC bespoke form
HIGH RISK£4.2M residential tower
Risk identified
Fitness-for-purpose obligation embedded in the definition of “Warranted Services” in Schedule 1, overriding the reasonable skill and care standard in the body of the warranty
Potential exposure
Absolute liability for defects in specification performance criteria the subcontractor did not set — uncapped
Flagged with recommended amendment to delete fitness-for-purpose language from Schedule 1 and align with reasonable skill and care standard
Bespoke funder warranty
HIGH RISK£11M commercial office fit-out
Risk identified
Assignment clause permitted unlimited assignment without consent to any successor in title, with no cap on assignments and no notice requirement
Potential exposure
Liability to unknown future owners for latent defects discovered up to 12 years after practical completion
Flagged with recommended amendment to limit assignment to two occasions and require written notice within 14 days
Purchaser warranty
HIGH RISK£2.8M mixed-use development
Risk identified
PI insurance obligation required £5m minimum cover maintained for 12 years post-PC; no net contribution clause included in the warranty
Potential exposure
100% liability for losses where multiple parties were responsible, and inability to comply with insurance tail beyond year 6
Flagged with recommended insertion of net contribution clause and amendment to reduce insurance tail to reflect market availability
About collateral warranty review
A collateral warranty is a separate contract that creates a direct legal duty of care between a contractor or subcontractor and a third party — typically a funder, purchaser, or tenant. It effectively extends your liability beyond the main contract. Collateral warranties are often issued at practical completion under time pressure, which is exactly when onerous obligations get missed.
LazyQS flags fitness-for-purpose obligations that exceed reasonable skill and care, step-in rights and their notice requirements, assignment provisions that let the beneficiary transfer the warranty to unlimited future owners, insurance obligations (particularly PI requirements post-completion), net contribution clauses, and limitation periods that extend beyond the standard six or twelve years.
No. LazyQS is built for QSs, project managers, and construction professionals who need to understand collateral warranty risk quickly. The output is plain-language risk findings with clause references — not legal jargon. For high-value warranties or ones with unusual provisions, use the LazyQS output as a brief for a construction solicitor to reduce their review time and your legal costs.
Most collateral warranties are reviewed in under 10 minutes. They are shorter documents than full subcontracts, so the analysis is typically very fast. You will receive an email notification when complete.
Yes. LazyQS reviews standard form warranties including CoWa/F (for funders), CoWa/SC (for subcontractors), BPF forms, and bespoke warranties. For bespoke forms it identifies deviations from market-standard provisions and flags anything that goes beyond the standard risk allocation.
Upload your collateral warranty now and get a full risk analysis in under 10 minutes. First review is free. No credit card required.
Upload your warranty for free review