Construction Contract Attorneys in Northern Virginia
Build on a Contract That Holds Up
Every construction dispute starts in the contract, and most could have been prevented there. We draft and review prime contracts for owners and contractors across Northern Virginia, with the payment, scope, and default terms Virginia law now requires.
✓ Owners & Contractors
✓ Leesburg & Fairfax
✓ AIA & Custom Forms
What Virginia Writes Into Your Contract
Three Payment Rules the Law Now Sets
60 Days
The outer limit for a private owner to pay the general contractor after receiving an invoice for satisfactorily completed work
7 Days
Once the owner pays, the general contractor must pay the subcontractor within seven days, if that comes before the sixty day mark
Pay-If-Paid Is Void
Owner payment cannot be a condition of paying a subcontractor, and contract terms that say otherwise are unenforceable
Sources: Code of Virginia § 11-4.6 (required payment provisions in construction contracts and the ban on pay-if-paid conditions, applicable to contracts entered into after January 1, 2023, as amended effective July 1, 2023); § 8.01-246 (five year limit on written contract claims); § 8.01-250 (five year statute of repose measured from completion).
The most common cause of construction disputes is parties failing to understand or follow their own contract. Virginia has also rewritten what a construction contract must say about payment, which means a form that worked a few years ago may now contain unenforceable terms. The document deserves real attention before anyone signs it.
The Contract Decides the Dispute Before It Starts
A prime construction contract allocates every risk on the job: who pays for a delay, what counts as complete, when money is due, what happens on default, and where a fight gets decided. Those answers get set at signing, long before anyone knows which side of them they will be on. A standard AIA form is a reasonable skeleton, but the blanks, the riders, and Virginia’s statutory overlays are where the real terms live, and an off the shelf form drafted for another state can carry payment clauses Virginia now refuses to enforce.
We draft and review prime contracts for owners and general contractors, on either side of the table. Getting the document right up front is the cheapest insurance against a contract dispute later, and it works hand in hand with the change order and documentation procedures that keep the record clean while the job runs.
Schedule a ConsultationWhere We Come In
- ✓ You are an owner about to sign a construction contract for a build or renovation
- ✓ You are a contractor whose standard contract predates Virginia’s payment law changes
- ✓ You need an AIA form completed, modified, and tailored to Virginia
- ✓ The other side sent a contract and you want it read before you sign
- ✓ You are negotiating payment, retainage, delay, or termination terms
- ✓ You want one strong template you can use across your projects
What We Handle
Contract Drafting & Review Services
The terms that decide construction outcomes, drafted with your side of the job in mind.
Prime Contract Drafting
Building the owner and contractor agreement from the ground up, or from an AIA base, with terms that fit the project and Virginia law.
Contract Review & Redlines
Reading the other side’s draft before you sign, flagging the risk shifts, and marking up the terms that need to change.
Payment & Retainage Terms
Structuring pay applications, deadlines, withholding procedures, and retainage so the terms comply with Virginia’s payment statute.
Scope, Schedule & Delay Provisions
Defining the work, the milestones, and who bears the cost of a slip, including notice requirements and liquidated damages terms.
Termination & Default Clauses
Writing termination for cause and for convenience, cure periods, and remedies, so ending a bad job does not create a worse claim.
Dispute Resolution & Warranty Terms
Choosing arbitration or court deliberately, setting notice and claim procedures, and defining the warranty that survives completion.
What Virginia law now requires in the contract
For construction contracts entered into after the start of 2023, Virginia writes payment terms into the deal whether the parties draft them or not. A private owner must pay the general contractor within sixty days of receiving an invoice for satisfactorily completed work, and an owner who intends to withhold must say so in writing within forty five days, identifying the specific noncompliance and the dollar amount. The general contractor must pay a subcontractor within the earlier of sixty days of the subcontractor’s invoice or seven days after receiving the owner’s payment, with a written withholding notice due within fifty days. Most importantly, pay-if-paid conditions are gone: the owner’s payment cannot be a condition of paying the subcontractor, outside owner insolvency or bankruptcy, and any contrary provision is unenforceable. Retainage terms are untouched, and the payment rules do not reach pure material suppliers. Around those mandatory terms, the parties still control everything else: scope, schedule, delay risk, liquidated damages, termination, warranties, and whether disputes go to arbitration or court. And the clock matters even at the drafting stage, because written contract claims generally carry a five year limit and Virginia’s statute of repose can cut off defect claims five years from completion, which is the horizon your warranty and claims terms live under.
Attorney Insight
“I litigate construction disputes, so I know exactly which clauses end up in front of a judge, and that is precisely how I draft. The most common cause of these fights is not bad faith. It is parties who never understood their own contract, or a form that quietly stopped complying when Virginia rewrote the payment rules. An afternoon spent getting the payment terms, the change order procedure, and the termination clause right costs a fraction of what one dispute does. I would rather draft the contract that keeps you out of my litigation practice.”
Anthony I. Shin, Esq.
Founder, Shin Law Office
Common Questions
Answers Before You Call
We use AIA forms. Do we still need a lawyer?
Yes, for two reasons. The AIA form is a national template, and the blanks, checkboxes, and riders are where the actual deal gets made, which is where mistakes happen. And Virginia overlays its own mandatory payment terms on every construction contract, so the form has to be conformed to state law, not just filled in.
What payment terms does Virginia require?
On private projects, the owner must pay the general contractor within sixty days of an invoice for satisfactorily completed work, and the general contractor must pay a subcontractor within the earlier of sixty days of invoice or seven days after receiving the owner’s payment. Withholding is still allowed, but only with a timely written notice stating the specific reason and amount.
Can our contract still say we pay subs only after the owner pays us?
No. For contracts entered into after the start of 2023, making the owner’s payment a condition of paying the subcontractor is unenforceable, with a narrow exception for owner insolvency or bankruptcy. Contracts drafted before the change often still carry these clauses, which is a good reason to have your template updated.
Should we choose arbitration or court?
It depends on the project and your priorities. Arbitration is private and often faster, but it is binding with very limited appeal, and the contract decides it before any dispute exists. We walk through the tradeoffs and write the dispute clause deliberately, along with the notice and claim procedures that come before it.
What happens if we never signed a written contract?
Oral construction agreements can be enforceable, but they are harder to prove, the limitations period is shorter than for written contracts, and every disputed term becomes a swearing match. If the job is underway without a signed contract, it is worth papering the terms now rather than after a problem appears.
Related Construction Services
Get the Contract Right Before You Sign
The terms are far easier to shape at the table than to argue about on the job. Send us the draft, or let us build one that fits your project. Serving Leesburg, Fairfax, and all of Northern Virginia.
Prefer to talk now? Reach Anthony I. Shin, Esq. at 571-445-6565.
Based in Loudoun County and serving clients across Virginia, Washington DC, and Maryland, we know that when everything’s on the line, the right attorney doesn’t just make a difference, they determine the outcome.
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Copyright © 2026 Shin Law Office, PLC. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2026 Shin Law Office, PLC. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of any content on this site is prohibited except for individual, non-commercial, informational use. This limited permission does not allow modification, distribution, or incorporation of any content into other works or publications in any medium. You may not reproduce or distribute content from this site to any third party.