Grey Structure vs Complete Construction Contract in Multan: Which Is Right for Your House?

Every week someone in Multan asks us the same question: should I sign for the grey structure only, or hand over the whole house to one contractor? There is no single right answer, but there is a right answer for your plot, your budget and your temperament. Here is how we explain the difference to our own clients.

What a grey structure contract actually covers

Grey structure is everything that makes the house stand and survive: excavation and PCC, foundations, plinth, columns and beams, brickwork, slabs, lintels, mumty, boundary walls, and usually the concealed electrical and plumbing rough-in that has to go inside the walls before plaster. It ends at brick and concrete, with the building watertight and structurally complete.

What it does not include is everything a family actually lives with: plaster and putty, flooring, doors and windows, kitchen, bathrooms, paint, ceilings, and the wiring and sanitary fittings that finish the job.

What a complete (turnkey) contract covers

A complete contract takes the same structure and carries it through to handover — finishing, fixtures, kitchen, wardrobes, paint, external works. You deal with one team, one schedule and one point of responsibility from the first excavation to the day you get the keys.

Where the money and the risk sit

The honest trade-off is control versus coordination. A grey-only contract keeps your finishing budget in your hands. You can buy tiles yourself, choose your own carpenter, and phase spending as cash comes in. Overseas clients often prefer this because relatives on the ground can manage the finishing.

The cost is coordination. Every finishing trade has to follow the structure correctly: electrical points buried in the right place, door frames set at the right height, floor levels planned before the first tile is laid. When two contractors meet at that boundary, small mistakes become expensive arguments. In our experience, most of the disputes we are asked to inspect in Multan are not structure problems — they are finishing problems created at the grey-stage handover.

A complete contract moves that coordination risk onto the contractor. You pay for management, but you also stop paying for the mistakes of a handover gap.

Grey structure makes sense when

• You have a finishing team you already trust, and a family member or friend who can supervise daily.
• Your budget arrives in stages and you want to build the shell now, finish later.
• You want to personally choose every tile, door and light, and you enjoy that process.
• The plot needs work first — boundary, levelling, approvals — and you want to start small.

A complete contract makes sense when

• You live abroad and cannot inspect a site every week.
• You want one schedule and one number to plan around.
• Your finishing choices are still open and you would rather decide them with the team that is building, room by room, than in isolation.
• You have seen too many half-finished houses in your own street and would rather not manage four trades yourself.

Questions to ask before signing either one

Ask exactly where the contract stops. Is plaster included? Is the septic tank included? Are the concealed conduits included, or only the walls? Is the mumty finished or bare? Is boundary wall in the scope? Who pays for water and electricity during construction?

For a complete contract, ask what happens when a finishing choice changes mid-build, and how change orders are priced and approved in writing. A contractor who cannot explain that process clearly will not handle it clearly later.

A middle path we often recommend

Many of our clients sign the structure and finishing as separate, clearly defined scopes with the same team and one supervisor. You get the transparency of two budgets with the coordination of one builder, and the BOQ stays readable at every stage.

Whatever you choose, get the scope on paper before the first truck of bricks arrives. If you would like to talk through your own plot in Multan, book a consultation with our team — we will sit with your drawings, your budget and your timeline and tell you honestly which route fits.