What is a Relevant Matter under JCT?
A Relevant Matter is a listed event on the employer's side that gives the contractor the right to recover the loss and expense it causes.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
For the list clause by clause, see what JCT clause 4.22 means.
The answer
Loss and expense here means direct cost the contractor would not otherwise have had. So a Relevant Matter is about money. Relevant Events are the parallel list about time, and they can give an extension of time. In the 2016 JCT forms, the Relevant Matters include variations and instructions, deferred possession and discrepancies in the contract documents. They also cover hold-ups and defaults by the employer, or by people it is responsible for. For you as a subcontractor, the list that counts is the one in your subcontract, not the main contract. Quote it from that document, not from memory. The two lists overlap a lot, but they are separate, and so are the claims. You claim loss and expense under the loss and expense clause, which has its own rules on notice and details. That holds whatever has happened on time. Our work is the money side. The time side of a claim comes from the contract administrator or someone else.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
An employer instructs a change to the ground floor layout. It is passed down in writing as a variation, and it leaves a plastering subcontractor's gang unable to carry on for two weeks.
What happens
- The variation is one of the listed matters. The subcontractor gives notice as the loss and expense clause of its subcontract requires.
- The claim prices the gang's standing time and related preliminaries for the two weeks, from the labour returns and plant hire records.
- Any extension of time for the same fortnight is applied for separately, under a different clause.
The outcome
The money for the fortnight is claimed as loss and expense under the Relevant Matter. The time for the same fortnight is a separate application under a separate clause.
Delay & Disruption Claim builds the loss and expense figure head by head from the records.