According to a Czech Supreme Court decision (file no. 33 CDO 989 / 2019) on 15 October 2019, one way to determine the price for work agreed on by the parties is to refer to the budget which was part of the contract or was provided by the contractor to the client before the contract was concluded.
Except where extraordinary unforeseeable conditions affect the performance of the work, in which case section 2620 (2) of the Civil Code may apply, no change may be requested to the price for work stated in the budget. Section 2622 concerns the contractor’s right to increase the fee where a budget is incomplete or non-binding as well as the client’s right to withdraw from the contract if the contractor requests a price increase of more than 10%. Generally speaking, the budget represents the final compilation of required work costs and not an approximate outline of possible costs. The budget details the cost of the work required, the type of work and the number and volume (materials) of items involved based on not just the scope and content of the work but also the value of individual budget items.
A contractor’s statement that “the work will require about X amount of money” is not a budget. In the case at hand, the parties to the contract for work did not discuss the price of the work by referring to a budget, as provided under section 2620 (20) of the Civil Code. The price for the work required to assemble a lift was determined by an estimate and reference to the “budget of the construction firms.” As the latter were subcontractors and not parties to the contract for work, this was not a reference to an itemised budget.