Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Construction Claims and Responses
Construction Claims and Responses
The Effect is how the cause affected the time for completion or contract price.
The Entitlement provides the claimant with the right to make a claim and is usually
contained within the contract, or occasionally provided by law.
Failure to include all of the above within a claim could be fatal to the claim.
Failure or address all of the above within a response or result in the response
being disputed.
Take care with prose, grammar and punctuation and ensure that the
narrative is easily read and properly understood.
Correct grammar and the like will add credibility to the claim or response and support the
fact that it has been prepared in a professional manner. Misunderstanding of points made
may influence the outcome negatively.
Keep the writing style simple and direct. Avoid ‘legalese’ and
unnecessarily complicated language.
Complicated language may lead to misunderstanding or confusion of the points being made.
The object of the claim or response is to be properly understood, not to impress a reviewer.
Quotations from the contract may be used to great effect in a narrative. The use of actual
wording from the contract ensures that the reviewer understands that the intended meaning
of the clause has not been manipulated to support a case.
Direct quotations from the records or contract may be used to great effect to support the
claim and to help to ‘tell the story’. When quoting from the records or the contract, ensure
that the reviewer knows that it is direct quotation by the use of quotation marks or the like.
If incorrect spelling or grammar is contained in the document being quoted from, you must
include it exactly as written.
Ensure that the submission document is well ordered and indexed to
enable a reviewer to quickly find documents.
Remember that we need to make the reviewer’s job as easy and as pleasant as possible.
Labelled dividers with the appendices will help to achieve this.
If the reviewer is able to read the narrative and at the same time have the appendices open
for reference and verification, it will make his or her job easier and more pleasant.
Remember that the document should be easily understood by someone not familiar with the
circumstances.
Also be aware that when a person proof reads something that they have written themselves,
they often ’read’ what they think is written, rather than what is actually written.
A review by a colleague or 3rd party will pick up mistakes and also highlight areas that may
need to be improved upon for a proper understanding.
The Narrative
The following is a suggestion of the sections to be included within atypical claim
or response:
Front cover
Contents
Executive Summary: Summary of the document – maximum 2 pages
Statement of Claim: Brief details of the contract, project, nature of the claim,
circumstances giving rise to the claim, cause, effect and entitlement
Definitions, Abbreviations and Clarifications
The Contract Particulars
Details of the Claim for an Extension of Time : Cause, effect, delay analysis,
entitlement
The Appendices
The following is a typical list of items to be included in the appendices in support of the
narrative:
Exhibits: Letters, minutes, site records, etc.
Drawings
Photographs
Cost Calculations
Standalone document
Professional presentation
CEES
Effect
Entitlement
Substantiation
Q2.What are the three key points for an effective claim or response?