Would your claim survive scrutiny?
Twelve questions across the four pillars every tribunal tests - notices, records, programme, quantum. Answer honestly and get a scored verdict, plus a prioritised list of what to fix before the other side finds it.
A typical first score
Most claims score here on first assessment. Most are still fixable.
A red pillar is a line of attack. The scorecard below tells you which ones the other side's advisors will find - and what to do about each.
Claim Readiness Score
0/12 answeredPillar 1 of 4
Notices & time bars
The gate every claim must pass before merits are even discussed.
Answer all three to continue - honest answers make the score worth having.
Why This Exists
Claims settle at the value of their evidence.
Not their merits. A contractor genuinely entitled to 40M whose file proves 15M settles near 15M - and the discount is applied politely, one gap at a time: the notice that was late, the records that were reconstructed, the critical path that was asserted rather than analysed, the prolongation priced by formula.
The other side's advisors run exactly this triage on your claim in their first week. This scorecard runs it first - while the gaps can still be closed. That closing work is the daily business of our claims practice.
The Four Pillars
What a tribunal actually tests.
Notices & time bars
The gate before the merits. Late or defective notices let the other side defeat the claim without ever discussing what happened.
Date your deadlines →Records & evidence
Tribunals weight what was written during the event far above what was assembled after the dispute began. Causation is proven in writing.
Records discipline →Programme & delay
EOT entitlement requires a recognised analysis method showing the event drove completion - and an honest answer on concurrency.
Delay analysis →Quantum
Amounts built from ring-fenced actual costs survive. Rounded figures, tender rates, and formula prolongation get struck first.
Claim review →The Honest Part
The gap between entitled and paid is a working file.
A low score is not a verdict on your claim - it is a to-do list, and most of it is still actionable if you move before submission. Notices can sometimes be salvaged, records consolidated, the delay analysis commissioned, the quantum rebuilt from actuals. That triage-and-repair work is our Cure practice; keeping files at a standard where the score never drops is Prevention. Either way, the worst option is finding out your score from the other side's statement of defence.
Questions Contractors Ask
Claim readiness, answered.
What decides whether a construction claim succeeds?
Four things, in a fairly predictable order. First, procedure: was the claim noticed within the contractual time bars, in the prescribed form? Second, evidence: do contemporaneous records prove what happened and what it caused? Third, delay: does a recognised analysis method show the event drove the completion date? Fourth, quantum: is the amount built from substantiated actual costs? Claims rarely fail on their merits - they fail on one of these four pillars, which is exactly what this scorecard tests.
Why do most construction claims settle for less than their value?
Because a claim settles at the value of its evidence, not the value of its merits. Every gap - a late notice, a missing record, an undemonstrated critical path, a formula-based quantum - becomes a discount the other side prices into its offer. The contractor knows the claim is 'worth' 40M; the file only proves 15M; the settlement lands near the file. Closing the gaps before submission is the highest-return commercial work on any project.
What records do I need to support a delay or cost claim?
Contemporaneous ones: daily reports and diaries covering the event window, labour and plant allocation sheets, progress photographs with dates, the correspondence trail showing cause (instructions, RFIs, approvals, site conditions), programme updates from the period, and cost records ring-fenced to the event through dedicated cost codes. The unifying principle is that tribunals weight evidence created during the event far above anything assembled after the dispute began.
Which delay analysis methods do tribunals accept?
The recognised methods - time impact analysis, windows analysis, as-planned versus as-built, and their variants described in the SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol and AACE guidance. Which one fits depends on the records available and when the analysis is done. What tribunals consistently reject is assertion: 'the event obviously delayed us' is not a method, and neither is a bar chart with an arrow on it. The analysis also has to confront concurrency honestly, because the other side's will.
What is a global claim, and why are they rejected?
A global claim rolls every event and cost into one composite sum without linking individual causes to individual effects - 'everything went wrong, it cost us 50M'. They are routinely rejected or heavily discounted because they invite the response that some of the causes were the contractor's own, and the claim provides no way to separate them. If your quantum is a rounded figure with substantiation 'to follow', you are building a global claim whether you call it that or not.
Is this assessment legal advice?
No. It is a structured self-assessment that mirrors how practitioners triage a claim file, and its output is only as honest as the answers. It does not review your documents, and it is not a substitute for having the actual notices, records, programme, and quantum examined. For a claim you intend to submit or defend, have the file reviewed by a qualified practitioner.
This tool is a structured self-assessment based on how practitioners triage claim files. It is not legal advice, does not review your documents, and no consultant-client relationship arises from its use. For a claim you intend to rely on, have the file reviewed by a qualified practitioner.
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