Let the records set the claim's size
The strongest claim is the biggest figure your records can carry, not the biggest figure you can argue. Pick the number first and the team pads it out, which is exactly what your main contractor's surveyor looks for.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
A figure picked first turns your team into its defenders. Every record that supports it is kept, every record against it is explained away, and the gaps are filled with guesses. Your main contractor's surveyor will call that padding. It usually shows, because it looks different from the parts with evidence behind them, and once found it drags the whole claim down. A figure that comes out of the records is smaller, sometimes much smaller. But it has no soft lines, so there is nothing to attack except the evidence itself.
How to do it
- Read the records before anyone names a target figure, and agree with your directors that the figure comes at the end.
- List the events and costs the records actually show, with the document behind each.
- Value only what the records show, and keep a separate note of what might exist but cannot be proved.
- Present the figure with its evidence, and explain to your directors why it is that figure.
- Push back on any instruction to add to the figure without a record to support it.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontractor's commercial director tells the claims team the overrun is £600,000 and the claim should recover all of it. The surveyor asks to read the records first and reports back in 2 weeks.
What happens
- The cost ledger, allocation sheets and correspondence show four events with a cost trail, worth £370,000 in total.
- Another £150,000 of overrun cannot be tied to anything the main contractor caused, and £80,000 is the subcontractor's own rework.
- The surveyor presents £370,000 with a document behind every line, and a separate note on the £150,000 that cannot be tied to an event.
Overrun by category
| Category | Amount |
|---|---|
| Backed by records of the main contractor's events | £370,000 |
| Overrun not tied to any event | £150,000 |
| Own rework | £80,000 |
| Total overrun | £600,000 |
The outcome
The claim goes in at £370,000 and settles at £330,000. The £600,000 version would have been cut below that once the £230,000 with no cost trail was found.
To have this done for you, see our Delay & Disruption Claim service.