Taking-Over Certificate
The certificate confirming that the works have reached substantial completion and are accepted by the employer. It stops liquidated damages, starts the defects liability period, and usually triggers release of the first half of retention.
It is the single most consequential document in the back half of a project, because so much hangs off its date. LDs stop accruing. The DLP clock starts. Retention becomes partly releasable. Risk in the works generally passes. Insurance obligations change.
Which is why disputes about taking-over are rarely about whether the building is finished — they are about the date. And the date is determined by the contract’s test for substantial completion, not by anybody’s sense of whether the project feels done, which is why the outstanding-works list attached to the certificate matters more than it looks.
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