Liquidated damages

They exist because proving actual damages from a late building is difficult and expensive — lost rent, delayed opening, extended financing — so the parties agree a daily figure up front instead of litigating it later. To be enforceable the figure generally has to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss rather than a penalty, a distinction that varies by jurisdiction.

On a bid, liquidated damages are a risk transfer, and risk a bidder is asked to carry is risk it will price. A subcontractor exposed to daily damages on a schedule it does not control will either add contingency, qualify its acceptance of the clause, or exclude it outright.

Those three responses produce three numbers that cannot be compared. A bidder that has accepted full liquidated damages exposure and one that has written "LDs not accepted" have not bid the same job, and the second has quietly handed that exposure back to the general contractor. It belongs on the bid tab as its own line, because unlike most qualifications it has a dollar value that can be estimated.

Read the flow-down carefully. A subcontract passing the owner's liquidated damages through to a trade whose work is two weeks of a two-year schedule is asking that trade to insure the entire project, and the price of that will be in the number whether or not it is itemized.