My records wouldn't stand up if my main contractor made a claim against me
Instructions with nothing in writing, notices written but never sent, photos on phones. If a counterclaim came back tomorrow, I could not answer it from the file.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
What's happening?
The gaps are usually easy to spot. Instructions were given in conversation and never confirmed. Notices were written, but nothing shows they were sent. Photographs sit on individual phones, and some agreements were never fully written down. The job moves faster than the paperwork, and nobody checks the file until it is needed.
If your main contractor makes a claim against you, those gaps are where it will push. An allegation you cannot answer from the file is hard to argue with, and it can end up taken off your account. How much your records still help depends on your subcontract and on what evidence you can find.
The solution
Take a sample of your records and ask three questions of each one. Can it be found? Can it be understood? Can it be traced to the point it would have to prove? Note where the originals are kept. Then list where your main contractor could bring a claim that your file could not answer, worst first.
Counterclaim Prevention starts with exactly that check. We then set up the records and written answers that close the gaps, and prove them on a live month with your team. We record the limits of the sample. We do not decide whether evidence would be admitted, who is liable or who would win.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A groundworks subcontractor has a £4,000,000 package on a school extension. Its commercial director suspects the records would not stand up if the main contractor counterclaimed against the account. A sample of instructions, notices and photographs is checked. Can each be found, can it be understood, and can it be traced to the point it supports?
What happens
- The sample is 20 instructions from the variation register, the 6 notices the subcontract required, and the photograph record for the groundworks.
- Of the 20 instructions, 12 are in email with the sender's role visible. Five sit in a messaging thread on the site manager's phone. Three are only entries in the register, with nothing behind them.
- Four of the 6 notices were written and filed, but nothing shows they were sent. The groundworks photographs are on 3 phones, with dates but no locations.
- The report says plainly that none of this decides what is admissible or what any instruction is worth.
- A priority list goes out. Copy the thread and the photographs into the job folder with dates and grid references. Record how every notice was sent. Stop logging instructions that have no source.
- One entry supports a £38,000 variation that has not been claimed. It is raised with the director as a claim of the subcontractor's own, outside this check.
The outcome
Within a month, every live entry in the register shows its source. When the main contractor later alleges late drainage work, the dated photographs and the sent notices answer it in the first exchange.