Loss and Expense

Loss and expense is the contractor\'s claim for additional costs incurred because of matters affecting regular progress for which the employer is responsible — the money side of disruption and delay, distinct from any extension of time.

Time and money travel together but claim differently. An event may disrupt the works without delaying completion — disrupted but not delayed — and produce loss and expense with no extension of time. The claim needs three things: a relevant event, actual cost properly evidenced, and the causal link between the two. Global claims that skip the third are treated with the scepticism they have earned.

Records decide these claims. Allocated labour and plant records, productivity data, the contemporaneous programme: presented with the arithmetic visible, loss and expense claims settle; presented as a total with a story, they adjudicate badly.

Related: extension of time · delay analysis · final account