Windfall Profits

This is how it happens:

You are the architect and you specify 3/4" Lapidus granite for the kitchen counters and backsplashes. The million dollar house is bid and the contract for construction is signed at a fixed price. Then one day you get a phone call from the granite installer asking if the owner has selected the granite yet. After expressing surprise that you are even receiving a phone call about this because the specifications are so clear, you read to the installer what you wrote about 3/4" Lapidus granite in the specifications. He says he'll call you back. When he does, he says that he originally priced a mid-grade light brown granite per the contractor's instructions, and the Lapidus granite will cost your client an extra $3,000. That's how it happens.

Update: Turns out the granite installer was lying and the contractor really did give a complete set of drawings to the granite installer, who "overlooked the specifications" and priced cheaper granite for whatever reason. The contractor is now pressuring the granite guy to eat the difference. May not happen that way. It's their dispute. The owner personally selected the Lapidus granite and the bid is the bid.

This is also how it happens:

You are the architect and you specify all the plumbing fixtures down to the exact make and model. The million dollar house is bid and the contract for construction is signed at a fixed price. Then one day you get a phone call from the contractor asking if you and/or the clients might review the plumbing schedule once more before the plumber orders the fixtures. Your client does this and decides to change a couple of the fixtures. In the meantime, prices have gone up 25% between the end of 2005, when the plumber pre-ordered the fixtures at a locked-in price, and Spring of 2006. Rather than re-pricing only the fixtures that were changed by the client and keeping all the other fixtures at the locked-in 2005 prices, the plumber re-prices everything at the inflated 2006 prices. After great gnashing of teeth because of the unexpectedly huge cost increase (this is where the client writes, "You are an idiot" in an email), you as the architect finally figure out what happened, and the plumber doesn't get his $1,500 windfall profit as he'd hoped. That is how it happens.

Update: The contractor has been disputing this all week with the plumber, who still isn't budging for whatever reason. So it looks like the contractor will be forced to eat the difference between the 2005 and 2006 prices on the fixtures that didn't change.