TL;DR
A change directive is a written order from the owner or architect instructing the contractor to proceed with changed work immediately, before the parties have agreed on its price or schedule effect, with cost resolved afterward by negotiation or the contract's pricing method. It exists for moments a project cannot stop, such as a buried condition or failed inspection blocking the critical path while a change order would take weeks to negotiate.
What it means
A change directive is a written order from the owner or architect instructing the contractor to proceed with changed work immediately, before the parties have agreed on its price or schedule effect, with cost resolved afterward by negotiation or the contract's pricing method. It exists for moments a project cannot stop, such as a buried condition or failed inspection blocking the critical path while a change order would take weeks to negotiate. The AIA system formalizes it as the Construction Change Directive in A201, requiring the contractor to proceed while tracking costs for later settlement.
Where it sits in the glossary
Change directive is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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