The "books" were called Bills of Quantities and I used to be one of the people that put them together.
I once got a bollocking off my boss for calling up a Contractor pointing out that he'd turned two pages over together when adding up all his "teeny tiny numbers" and had missed £10k's of work from his totals. I suggested if he got something to me by the end of the day we'd all pretend it was his first document.

I wasn't allowed to do that under the terms of the Contract, but I considered it the right thing to do. A form of anti-greed, if you will. Why should the client get to avoid paying the Contractor £10k for work he had to do, all because of a simple mistake?

(For those in the trade, it was actually an application for payment prior to my interim valuation under JCT and not a tender, but the principle stands.)
(dxg, Thu 14 Apr 2011, 21:22, 1 reply)

Forgive me if I'm wrong
but isn't it the case if you know party A has made a simple mistake, and you benefit from it and don't tell party A, they can still take the matter to court where a judge will say, 'You greedy fuck, you knew this guy made a mistake you said nothing, hoping to get money that wasn't meant to be yours, now give it back before or you'll taste the back of my hand'.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Sat 16 Apr 2011, 15:39, closed)