We kept almost no records. Is the claim dead?
Not necessarily: a thin file does not settle what the claim is worth or whether it can succeed.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
What can still be assessed depends on the evidence you have and on your subcontract. Other records may help rebuild events: emails and attachments, delivery tickets, invoices, payroll, allocation data, drawing registers, revision dates and photographs. Logs kept by independent third parties may help too. Start by keeping everything that survives. Take honest statements of what people remember, dated the day they are written. Work out what each source supports. Label anything rebuilt as a reconstruction. Keep material that goes against you, or leaves questions open, rather than dropping it. Any missed notice or time limit is a separate question, so get your solicitor's advice on it. For the work still to come, start a proper record routine now, but never rewrite old entries.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A fit-out subcontractor reaches final account with few diary entries. It still has emails, drawing issue sheets, payroll, delivery tickets and dated statements from two foremen. The account has to be built from what survives.
What happens
- The team lists each source and notes what it supports.
- Gaps and conflicting accounts between the sources are picked out.
- The result is presented as a reconstruction, not as a diary kept at the time.
- Any effect on notices, time limits or what is owed is checked against the subcontract, with proper advice.
The outcome
The account rests on a listed reconstruction of what survives. No percentage recovery, legal conclusion or predicted settlement follows from it.
Valuing what the surviving records can carry is the first stage of our Delay & Disruption Claim service; a routine for the work still to come is set up by Delay & Disruption Loss Prevention.