Project manager, integrated project direction and project monitoring: who watches cost

The first question is not what each role does, but who it answers to. The general framework of this branch, namely that the Building Act (Ley de Ordenación de la Edificación, LOE) does not entrust the safekeeping of the budget to any party, is set out in the article on who controls cost on the client's behalf. Here we compare the roles that can take on that safekeeping by contract.

Role	Principal	Subject	Timing	Basis of the obligation
Project manager or integrated project direction (DIP)	Promotor	Scope, cost, time and quality of the whole development	From programming to close-out	Project management contract
Project monitoring	Lender of the development loan	Consistency between works, cost and loan drawdowns	From the grant of the loan to the financial close-out	Bank requirement and the monitor's contract
Architect or arquitecto técnico (building engineer) with a cost assignment	Promotor	Budget at each stage, pricing of changes, forecast of final cost	As set out in the appointment	Additional professional appointment

All three can coexist on the same development. On a financed development, the promotor can have its own project manager while the bank also requires a monitor. The risk is not the accumulation, but each one producing its own final cost figure without anyone reconciling them.

Dirección integrada de proyecto is the Spanish name for project management. That is how R. de Heredia already presented it in 1995 in Informes de la Construcción (CSIC), with four simultaneous objectives: scope, cost, time and quality. In the market people mostly speak of "project manager" and "project management"; the term DIP survives mainly in university teaching.

Its position is that of a technical representative of the promotor. According to the same literature, the DIP complements the site direction without replacing it: the director de obra (works director) and the director de la ejecución (works execution director) keep their statutory functions, and the project manager acts on the promotor's behalf across the whole development. Heredia also criticised cost control reduced to checking certificates, which only looks at what has already been built.

For the budget, its value lies in anticipation. A useful project manager does not merely check that what has been certified matches what has been built; it maintains a forecast of final cost that brings together the contract, approved and pending changes, foreseeable excesos de medición (quantity overruns) and the remaining reserve, and presents it to the promotor before each decision.

Its cost deliverables should be listed in the contract. At a minimum: the reference budget with its price date and its scope (works or total development cost), its revision at each design stage with the same structure, the pricing of every change before it is approved, a periodic report on the forecast final cost and the close-out file reconciling the initial budget with the final cost.

Project monitoring, or monitorización de obras, is an external control required mainly by lenders on development loans. According to the description published by the firms that provide the service, it comprises an initial due diligence, periodic reports, usually monthly, control of loan drawdowns against the works carried out, and a final report with the "financial close-out" (cierre económico).

For the promotor, the monitor is both a help and a constraint. A help, because its initial due diligence puts the scheme under an outside eye before the works: a reservation from the monitor about the budget is a signal worth addressing before contracting. A constraint, because loan drawdowns depend on its reports: an extra work that the monitor does not consider justified may fall outside the financing even if the promotor has authorised it.

Its report is not the promotor's forecast. The monitor answers to the bank. Its figures can serve as a cross-check, but they do not replace the client's own forecast, and the promotor should not delegate to it the pricing of its changes or the negotiation with the contractor. The practical step is to give it the same budget structure the project manager uses, so that differences can be read item by item.

On medium-sized or small developments, the cost assignment can fall to the technical team. The works execution director already prepares and signs "the interim certificates and the final account of the work units carried out" (LOE, art. 13.2.e; unofficial translation), and the works director approves them (art. 12.3.e). The functions of both are described in the article on site direction and works execution direction.

But certifying is not forecasting. Certification measures what has been built at contract prices; forecasting the final cost requires pricing what remains, what is in dispute and what may arise. If the arquitecto técnico or the architect is to take on this second function, it must appear in their appointment as a separate assignment, with deliverables and a timetable. The professional body's validation (visado colegial) does not cover "the fees or the other contractual terms" (art. 13 of Ley 2/1974): the scope and remuneration of this assignment are freely agreed.

The advantage is proximity; the limit, independence. Whoever drafted the design or directs the works finds it hard to price deviations attributable to themselves. For those situations, an independent review of the budget at key stages remains useful, even if day-to-day control is carried out by the technical team.

The LOE does not name the project manager among its agentes (parties), but its definition of a party is broad. The parties are all the persons "who take part in the building process" (art. 8), and the trend in published decisions shows that this definition can reach the project manager.

In STS (First Chamber) 529/2020 of 15 October (appeal 4252/2017), reported by iberley.es, the Supreme Court described a project management company as a "building agent in its own right". That company had taken on functions of technical direction, project management and checking of certificates, and was held liable under the liability regime of art. 17 of the LOE. It is a decision tied to the functions actually performed, not a general rule for every project manager.

The lesson for the promotor is one of drafting. The contract must describe precisely what the project manager does and does not do, and practice must match that contract: if on site it ends up performing technical functions that were not provided for, the allocation of liability is no longer the one agreed. This liability for building defects is distinct from contractual liability for cost overrun, which is covered in the article on the architect's liability to the client for cost overrun. The general framework of the parties is in the article on the building agents under the LOE.

Four clauses make a cost control assignment effective. Each answers a different question: what is watched, who decides, what is delivered and with what information.

The mandate. Which budget is being watched (works, or total development cost), at what price date, and which stages the assignment covers. A project manager engaged only for the works is not answerable for a budget that was already out of line at design stage.

Decision-making authority. None without the promotor's written delegation. The point is sensitive in fixed-price contracts: article 1593 of the Civil Code allows the contractor to ask for a price increase for changes to the plans "provided the owner has given his authorisation", and, according to legal commentary, several Supreme Court judgments have accepted tacit authorisation. A project manager who orders changes on site without express delegation can create the appearance of that authorisation. The full mechanics are in the article on extra works under a fixed-price contract.

The cost deliverables. List, format and frequency: reference budget, revisions at each stage, prior pricing of each change, forecast final cost report with each certificate, close-out file. It is also advisable to set an alert threshold, whichever one the parties agree, above which the project manager must warn the promotor in writing without waiting for the periodic report.

Access to information. The project manager only controls what it sees: design, quantities, contracts, certificates, minutes and correspondence with the contractor. Access must be provided for in the contracts with the other parties, not only in its own.

The practical rule is a single budget structure and a single reference forecast.

Stage	Client's project manager	Bank's monitor	Site direction
Programming and design	Sets the reference budget and revises it at each stage	Initial due diligence before the loan	Drafting of the design and its budget
Procurement	Compares tenders with the reference budget	As set out in its contract with the bank	Technical support as set out in the appointment
Works	Final cost forecast with each certificate, pricing of changes	Periodic report and control of drawdowns	Interim certificates and changes to the design
Handover and close-out	Reconciliation of initial budget and final cost	Final report and financial close-out	Final account and final completion certificate

The promotor decides which figure prevails. If the project manager and the monitor disagree, the difference is analysed item by item, at the same price date. What the LOE says about cost, and how much it leaves unsaid, is analysed in the article on what the LOE says, and does not say, about construction cost.