No claim has been made against us yet. What would Counterclaim Prevention set up?
It checks where your main contractor could bring a claim against you, then sets up the records and written answers that would defend it.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
We prove them on a live month and hand them to your team to run. We start by reading the subcontract and the correspondence as your main contractor's surveyor would. We list every way a claim could be made against you, rate each one on the records you hold today, and name the record that would close it. If any allegation is still owed a written answer, we raise it with you straight away. Nothing is built until you have agreed that list in writing. We then add what a defence would need to the diary, allocation and handover sheets your people already use. We set up a same-day route for answering allegations in writing, and file everything so the records for any head can be found in a day. Your people run it for a live month with us alongside. We then sample the month's records against the list and change whatever did not work. None of this is legal advice on your liability. It keeps the facts a defence is built from, so if a claim does arrive, your answer starts from the records, not from a search.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A drylining subcontractor is 2 months into a £900,000 package. It has had two letters from its main contractor alleging slow progress on level 3, and neither was answered. No claim has been made yet.
What happens
- The subcontract and the correspondence are read as the main contractor's surveyor would read them. Five ways a claim could be made against the subcontractor are listed and rated on its records.
- The level 3 delay is rated the most exposed, because the allocation sheets do not show when the gangs were waiting for the ceiling grid. The two unanswered letters are raised with the director that day.
- Once the list is agreed in writing, the allocation sheet gains a column for waiting time and its cause. Handovers are dated and photographed, and allegations are answered in writing the day they arrive.
- At the end of the live month, the records are sampled against the list, and the handover routine is changed where two areas went unphotographed.
The outcome
The subcontractor's team runs the routine from there. Written answers to both letters are on the file, and every head of its exposure is matched to the record that would answer it.
To have your exposure tested and the records that would answer a claim set up, see our Counterclaim Prevention service.