Most delay claims don’t fall apart at adjudication.

They fall apart months. Sometimes years – earlier.

And the teams involved usually don’t realise it’s happening.

Here’s when it goes wrong:

The moment a team starts building a narrative instead of evidence.

I’ve seen it on major programs across infrastructure, resources, and energy.

Something goes wrong on site. A delay emerges. And instead of documenting it clearly and notifying early, the team holds it.

“We’ll use it later.”

“Let’s see how the project lands first.”

“We don’t want to damage the relationship.”

I understand the logic. But here’s what actually happens:

By the time the claim is formalised, the records are thin. The notices are late. The prospective analysis relies on hypotheticals that can’t be proven. And the early issues – the ones that mattered most – have been buried under months of project noise.

Now you’re asking an expert to reconstruct a story from incomplete evidence.

That’s not a claims strategy. That’s a gamble.

The four problems I see most often:

1. Late notices.

The contract sets the clock. Missing notice requirements doesn’t just weaken your claim, it can kill entitlement entirely.

2. Weak record-keeping.

Daily reports that say nothing. RFIs without proper timestamps. Correspondence that was verbal, not written. When you need it, it’s gone.

3. Prospective hypotheticals.

“If the design had been issued on time, we would have…” That’s an argument. Not evidence. You need contemporaneous records that show what actually happened.

4. Holding issues for leverage.

This one is the most damaging. It signals bad faith. It makes the expert’s job harder. And it almost always costs more than it gains.

Claims work best when they’re built the same way a good schedule is built – with transparency, logic, and records that speak for themselves.

The schedule tells the truth.

Your records either support it or they don’t.