A subcontractor misses a two-week notice window on a genuine delay, and a claim worth real money becomes worth nothing — not because the argument was wrong, but because the paperwork wasn't there in time. The Substantiating and Winning Construction Claims: Delays, Variations and Contractual Entitlements Training Course by Arab British Fellowship Training Academy is built around exactly that risk: knowing your contractual rights is only half the job, proving them on time is the other half.

Delivered under our Construction and Civil Engineering Training Courses, the programme covers delay analysis, extensions of time, variations, disruption and productivity loss, and the project documentation that supports all of them. Participants leave able to prepare, quantify, submit and negotiate a construction claim that stands up to scrutiny.

• Recognise the contractual events — variations, delay, disruption, unforeseen conditions — that create genuine entitlement to a claim.
• Track notice requirements and contractual time limits so entitlement isn't lost on a technicality.
• Distinguish excusable, non-excusable, compensable and concurrent delay, and apply practical delay analysis methods.
• Build a substantiated case for extensions of time using critical-path and time-impact evidence.
• Value variations, changed and additional work, and price their time and cost consequences.
• Identify and quantify disruption and lost productivity separately from delay.
• Maintain the daily records, correspondence and programme data that make or break a claim later.
• Structure, quantify and submit a professional claim, with a clear cause-effect-entitlement-quantum narrative.
• Assess incoming claims, negotiate effectively, and understand escalation routes through mediation, adjudication and arbitration.
• Run claims management as a continuous discipline across the project, not a scramble at the end.

Target Audience

• Construction claims and contract managers
• Construction and project managers
• Contracts administrators and commercial managers
• Quantity surveyors and cost engineers
• Planning engineers and project controls professionals
• Civil engineers and construction managers
• Consultants and contractors handling contractual disputes
• Legal and contract professionals working on construction projects

Module 1: The Cost of Losing a Claim — Notice Deadlines, Entitlement and Why Claims Fail

• Why claims are lost on technicalities, not merits
• Types and sources of construction claims
• Contractual entitlement and claim mechanisms
• Employer and contractor responsibilities
• Notice requirements and contractual time limits
• The claim lifecycle from event to resolution

Module 2: Delay Claims: Distinguishing Excusable, Compensable and Concurrent Delay

• Excusable versus non-excusable delay
• Compensable versus non-compensable delay
• Critical path and schedule impact
• Baseline versus updated programmes
• Concurrent delay considerations
• Practical delay analysis methodologies

Module 3: Extensions of Time: Building a Time Entitlement Case

• Contractual procedures for time extension applications
• Notice and substantiation requirements
• Assessing critical delay and time impact
• Preparing extension-of-time submissions
• Evaluating contractor-caused versus employer-caused delay

Module 4: Variations and Changed Work: Valuing and Timing the Impact

• Variations, changes and additional or omitted work
• Provisional quantities and instructed changes
• Valuing and pricing variation work
• Time and cost consequences of variations
• Documentation, approval procedures and managing disputed variations

Module 5: Disruption and Lost Productivity: Proving What Delay Analysis Misses

• Disruption versus delay
• Causes of lost labour and equipment productivity
• Access restrictions, work interference and resequencing
• Measuring disruption impacts
• Supporting disruption claims with project records

Module 6: The Paper Trail: Documentation and Evidence That Holds Up

• Daily reports, site records and progress photographs
• Correspondence, meeting minutes and programme updates
• Labour, equipment, material and cost records
• Maintaining contemporaneous, defensible evidence

Module 7: Building the Claim: Quantification, Narrative and Submission

• Structuring a professional claim submission
• Establishing cause, effect, entitlement and quantum
• Time impact assessment and cost/damages calculation
• Supporting schedules, technical evidence and claim narratives
• Submission review and quality control

Module 8: Assessment, Negotiation and Getting to Resolution

• Reviewing and evaluating incoming claims
• Negotiation strategies and claim response preparation
• Settlement approaches and escalation procedures
• Mediation, adjudication, arbitration and litigation overview

Module 9: Claims Management as a Continuous Discipline

• Integrating contract, schedule, cost and documentation into one system
• Claims registers and status tracking
• Early identification of emerging claims
• Preventive claims management and lessons learned