Taking-Over, and everything the certificate sets running
Taking-Over is the pivot of a FIDIC job. It is the day the Employer takes the work, half the retention releases, and the clock on defects begins. Getting the date right matters.
QScope Team · 26 March 2026 · 6 min read
On a Qatar FIDIC contract the Taking-Over Certificate is not just a milestone, it is a switch. Several things happen the day it is issued, and a surveyor who treats it as a formality misses the money and the deadlines it sets running. Clause 10 is short, but it carries a lot of weight.
What Taking-Over is
Under Clause 10 the Employer takes over the Works when they have been completed in accordance with the contract, and the Engineer issues a Taking-Over Certificate stating the date on which the Works were completed. From that date the Works are the Employer responsibility to use and, in most respects, to insure and maintain. It is the FIDIC equivalent of the handover the Employer has been waiting for.
What the certificate triggers
- Release of the first half of retention. Under Sub-Clause 14.9 half the retention held is released when the Taking-Over Certificate is issued. On a large job that is a significant movement of cash, and it flows through the next IPC.
- Start of the Defects Notification Period. The period during which the Contractor must make good notified defects runs from the Taking-Over date. Fix the date wrong and this period, and the second retention release at the end of it, move with it.
- End of delay damages. Liability for delay damages against the Time for Completion stops at Taking-Over, because the work is complete for the purposes of the contract.
Taking-Over of Sections
Where the contract divides the Works into Sections, each can be taken over separately, and each Taking-Over Certificate does the same job for its Section: it releases the proportionate first half of retention, starts that Section Defects Notification Period, and stops delay damages for that Section. On a phased Doha project this is where cash can be released early, so the Section dates are worth tracking as closely as the whole-of-works date.
Completion, not perfection
Taking-Over does not require the work to be free of every minor item. Outstanding minor work and defects that do not prevent the Works being used can be dealt with during the Defects Notification Period, with the certificate listing what remains. The judgement is whether the Works can be used for their intended purpose, not whether the snagging list is empty. A contractor holding out for a spotless handover before accepting Taking-Over is delaying its own retention release.
Why the date is the thing to protect
Because so much hangs off it, the Taking-Over date is the single most consequential date after the payment cycle. It releases money, starts a period, and ends a liability. With no statutory scheme behind the contract in Qatar, the certificate is the only record that fixes all three. Get it issued promptly, get the date right, and make sure the retention release and the Defects Notification Period are both driven from it.
QScope ties the Taking-Over date to the first retention release and the start of the Defects Notification Period, so the certificate moves the money and the deadlines it is supposed to.