Build preliminaries up, never percentage them
A percentage added for preliminaries, your site running costs, is the first line your main contractor's surveyor strikes out. Build them up week by week from the records instead: it is slow, but every line can be checked.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
A percentage for preliminaries tells the other side you did not look. There is nothing under it to test, so their surveyor strikes it in one line and offers a smaller percentage. You then have nothing to push back with. A build-up is slow because it is real: which staff, which weeks, which cabins, which plant, at what cost, from which records. Its value is that every line can be checked against a timesheet or an invoice. The other side has to argue line by line, and every line they cannot fault stays in.
How to do it
- List the site resources actually used in the period: staff by name and role, cabins and welfare, plant, temporary services and insurances.
- Record the weeks each one was on site, from the allocation sheets, hire records and invoices.
- Apply the cost rate from the payroll or invoice to each week, and note the source beside the figure.
- Take out anything already recovered elsewhere in the claim, and anything not caused by the event you are valuing.
- Total the build-up week by week and present it with the records referenced.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontractor is valuing 12 extra weeks of its site set-up. Its first version adds 15 per cent to the value of the affected work, giving £54,000. The main contractor's surveyor replies with 8 per cent and no reasoning, and neither figure has anything under it.
What happens
- The surveyor lists the set-up for the 12 weeks from the allocation sheets. It is a site manager, a quantity surveyor half time, two cabins with welfare, and a telehandler.
- Each item is costed at its weekly payroll or invoice rate and multiplied by the weeks it was there.
- The build-up comes to £61,200 and goes in with the timesheets and invoices referenced line by line.
Build-up of 12 weeks of preliminaries
| Resource | Amount |
|---|---|
| Site manager, 12 weeks at £1,800 | £21,600 |
| Quantity surveyor, half time, 12 weeks at £900 | £10,800 |
| Cabins and welfare, 12 weeks at £950 | £11,400 |
| Telehandler, 12 weeks at £1,450 | £17,400 |
| Total | £61,200 |
The outcome
The main contractor's surveyor challenges the telehandler weeks and agrees the rest, and this part of the claim settles at £58,000. The percentage argument would have ended somewhere near £40,000, with nothing to show why.
To have this done for you, see our Delay & Disruption Claim service.