The Project Plan: What Solution 2 Homeowners Should Expect to Sign

The Project Plan is the single most important piece of paper you’ll sign as a Solution 2 homeowner. It’s the document the program uses to track your project, release your draws, and verify completion. It’s also the document that pins the contractor to a scope and schedule.

Here’s what goes into one — and what to check before you sign.

What the program wants in the Project Plan

At minimum, the Project Plan needs:

A scope of work, aligned to the program’s Estimated Cost of Repairs (ECR)
A timeline with milestones
A draw schedule — up to five progress draws, each tied to a verifiable milestone
Start date and target completion date (with the 180-day start and 365-day completion clocks in mind)
Contractor identification, including license number and insurance information
Homeowner and contractor signatures

Beyond the minimum, a good Project Plan also includes:

Line-item cost breakdown that matches the ECR line by line
Change-order procedure, specifying that anything outside the ECR requires pre-approval
Documentation cadence — when you’ll see progress photos, when inspections are scheduled
Communication expectations — who you call, how fast they respond

Scope: the most important section

The scope of work is where projects actually succeed or fail. Two checkpoints:

Does the scope match the ECR? The program produced an Estimated Cost of Repairs based on the damage. Every item in that ECR needs to be in your scope of work. If something’s missing, flag it before you sign. After execution, adding to scope is a change order — and if it’s outside the ECR, the program won’t reimburse it.

Does the scope use words you can verify? “Replace roof” is scope. “Install 30-year architectural asphalt shingles to manufacturer specifications with synthetic underlayment and ice/water shield in the valleys” is scope you can verify when the roofer is finished. Push for specifics.

Timeline: the 180-day clock

The program requires that construction begin within 180 days of grant execution, with at least one documented inspection showing progress. Your Project Plan should have a realistic start date — not a wishful one.

If your contractor is booked eight months out and the Project Plan says start in 30 days, something’s going to break. Better to have that conversation now than in month five.

Draws: five milestones, tied to inspection

Solution 2 allows up to five progress draws. Each one is a two-party payment issued to both homeowner and contractor after an inspection confirms the work is done.

Typical draw breakpoints on a residential rebuild:

Tear-out and rough framing complete
Rough mechanical (electrical, plumbing, HVAC) complete
Drywall and interior finish
Exterior finish, roofing, envelope complete
Final punch list, inspection, close-out

Your contractor may structure differently depending on scope — but the milestones should be concrete, inspectable, and distributed across the project so you’re not paying for 80% of the work before 80% of the work is actually done.

Change orders: the procedure that keeps you out of trouble

Two things cause 90% of the disputes on Solution 2 projects:

Work gets done outside the ECR, and the program won’t pay for it.
A verbal change order gets “done” and the invoice shows up at the end.

Your Project Plan should spell out: nothing gets added to the scope without a written change order, the change order gets the program’s pre-approval if it’s inside the ECR, and anything outside the ECR is handled as a separate private agreement — not billed through the program.

What to push back on before signing

Vague scope language (“repair as needed”)
Missing milestone dates
Draws structured so more than 50% is paid before more than 50% is complete
No written change-order procedure
No documentation cadence

If the contractor won’t address those in writing, they’re not the contractor you want.