Delay & EOT
How to Assess an EOT Claim
Writing a strong EOT claim and assessing one fairly are different disciplines. From the reviewer's chair, the job is to test entitlement against the evidence — consistently, and defensibly — not to negotiate it.
Start with the contract, not the schedule
Before any delay analysis, confirm the claim rests on a valid contractual mechanism and that notices were served in time. A meritorious delay can still fail on notice; a reviewer who skips this does the claimant an accidental favour.
Validate the baseline you are measuring against
Delay is only meaningful against a sound, accepted baseline. Check for manufactured float, unjustified constraints or a critical path that runs through the wrong work — distortions that quietly inflate entitlement.
Test the method, then the causation
Is the analysis method appropriate to the timing and records, and applied consistently across every event? Then, for each event, trace cause to critical-path effect on the programme current at the time. Entitlement follows the critical path — float consumption is not delay to completion.
Concurrency and records
Identify genuine concurrency honestly rather than hoping it is missed, and assess its effect on both time and money. Throughout, weigh the claim against contemporaneous records: programmes, progress, correspondence and change. A position built on reconstruction is weaker than one built as events unfolded.
Conclude with a number you can defend
State the determined days with the method and evidence behind them, and explain the gap to the amount claimed. On the Riyadh City programme in Abu Dhabi, this disciplined approach saw a 291-day claim assessed to an approved 64 days — a figure that stood precisely because every day of it was traceable. The EOT review framework sets the same process out as a checklist.