Who is responsible at different stages in the creation of the site?

Question

Programming

The developers accepted the TOR and layout. Before signing the contract, they checked all the documents, jointly made changes to the TOR, looked at the layout, but did not conduct an audit, and did not offer to conduct one. We signed the contract, made an advance payment, during the implementation process, after 2 weeks it turned out that there were errors in the layout, and some elements did not work correctly or did not meet the standards. The layout designer accepted the changes, made the changes. At the same time, the current performer did not warn that changes might be needed that would need to be made by the layout designer. Another week passed, it turned out that more edits were needed, including some missing elements. The layout designer could not make changes at that time, but efficiency was needed, we agreed that we would pay part of the work on these edits to the layout designers proposed by the developers in order to not to delay the deadline. Another 2 weeks passed, and again it turned out that we needed edits in the layout + missing elements (the functionality is described in the technical specification, but this is not in the layout.)
Everything would be fine, but the project deadline is in 2 weeks. We started in December, delivery in mid-February and the cost of programming alone is more than 600 tr.
There is no information in the contract regarding the acceptance of layout and technical specifications by the contractor. The contractor justifies the refusal to make changes to the layout on his own by the fact that errors cannot be detected immediately, an audit was needed, he is not responsible for the layout, that errors should be corrected by those who made it under the guarantee. The guarantee consisted in accepting changes before signing an agreement with programmers and transferring the project to them. We thought that since the layout was accepted by the programmers, it means that they checked it (unfortunately, they did not fix this in the contract) ... There is no desire to pay the amount for editing the layout for the 2nd time and it’s not a fact that something new will not appear again .... The contractor now says - if you don't want to, don't pay, we will hand over a non-working site to you, despite the fact that we will fulfill our obligations under the contract (we will implement the software part).
How can this situation be handled in practice? Is the next contractor responsible for accepting sources from the previous one? Maybe there were similar cases?

Answer 1

There is an agreement where the responsibilities of the parties are prescribed, according to it, it is determined who is right and who is not.
But based on generally accepted standards, layout is for a layout designer, programming is for programmers. In general, these processes should not be interrupted in time. It is quite expected that layout improvements were needed at the development stage.
The project manager should be responsible for such inconsistencies. Who set tasks for layout designers and wrote T.Z. Apparently it's you.
The only thing that is not clear is why there is no layout designer on hand. There should have been an agreement with him that he was obliged to be on the hook before the project was delivered. But again, this is a problem of poor organization. If you are a customer, it was necessary to give such a large project to a company that would take all the troubles on itself. But you seem to be saving money. So if you saved money, why not throw money to a third-party layout designer who will promptly solve all problems?

Answer 2

the functional is described in the technical specification, but this is not in the layout, and what do
the programmers have to do with it?

Answer 3

Why didn't you check the layout yourself when you accepted it?
In general, programmers should not check it - they received the source materials from you, which should have been checked in advance. Programmers just write code for money according to the TOR.
This is exactly the same as getting texts and photos for the site from the client, and then informing the client that he has a bunch of spelling and factual errors in the text. Whose headache is this?
Another thing is that programmers do not have their own layout designer, at least outsourced, because this is an additional service and additional income.
In general, in this case, I would either communicate with the layout designer and present him with an invoice for the corrections that you received from the programmers, since the layout designer did not complete the layout, did not complete his work. Or I checked layouts, matching layouts and layouts to find the true reason for such a jamb.
And yet, someone accepted the layout, who missed modal windows and other non-layout elements that programmers are now telling you about.

Answer 4

Is the next contractor responsible for accepting sources from the previous one?

Of course not.
Who is responsible? - product owner, product manager is responsible. He checks and tests everything.
The fact that the finalization of the layout is required is a more than ordinary situation. It is strange to think that someone had to accept it in its final form when the backend is not ready.
To finalize the layout, it’s good to find those who want to do such tasks in any price category.
Why the original typesetters do not finalize it is not clear.