Preparation is the key to success, after all.
The contract There needs to be a contract which is easily decipherable. For an industry which has given rise to a raft of standard form construction contracts, it never ceases to surprise me just how much construction work is carried out either without any clear contractual arrangements at all, or with arrangements that are so vague that no party to the contract is quite sure who is contracted to whom over what. Needless to say, the desire to earn money is the root of the problem. This leads building contractors to start available work as soon as possible - planning to sort out the paperwork and the contractual relationships at a later date. Not surprisingly, this invariably leads to confusion - and confusion leads to disputes.