Source: https://www.quantsurv.com/library/glossary/head-office-overheads
Content format: Markdown version of the public page.
Content reviewed: 2026-10-10

# Head office overheads

The cost of running your business, such as offices and staff, that a delay can leave unrecovered.

by [Jack Butler-Kettle](<https://www.quantsurv.com/about#jack-butler-kettle>) · About 1 min readShare

## Further detail

Read this alongside [SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol](<https://www.scl.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/SCL_Delay_Protocol_2nd_Edition_Final.pdf>) and [Walter Lilly & Company Ltd v Mackay \[2012\] EWHC 1773 (TCC)](<https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/tcc/2012/1773>).

Head office overheads are business-wide costs such as central administration, office facilities and management. They differ from project preliminaries. A delay may affect recovery of those costs, but a formula result does not prove entitlement, causation or actual loss, and overlapping recovery must be avoided.

Support the claimed loss with accounts and evidence of the delay's effect. [Delay and disruption cost recovery](<https://www.quantsurv.com/claims?service=%2Fdelay-and-disruption%2Fservices%2Fdelay-disruption-recovery#client-types>) can help organise the financial evidence alongside the contractual basis.

## Sources

1.  [Delay and Disruption Protocol, 2nd edition, February 2017](<https://www.scl.org.uk/sites/default/files/documents/SCL_Delay_Protocol_2nd_Edition_Final.pdf>). Society of Construction Law.
2.  [Walter Lilly & Company Ltd v Mackay & Anor \[2012\] EWHC 1773 (TCC) (High Court, Technology and Construction Court, 11 July 2012)](<https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/tcc/2012/1773>). The National Archives, Find Case Law.

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