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Tracey Lancaster

Postgraduate researcher

School of Built Environment, Engineering and Computing | Futures of Systems, People and Projects (FUSP) laboratory

Tracey is researching the impact of unexpected events on construction projects and whether building contracts deal with these effectively. For the purposes of this study, unexpected events are limited to those that affect construction on an industry wide scale and for which there is no obvious clause to address them.

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About

Tracey is a chartered quantity surveyor who has worked in both consultancy and contracting, managing the contractual and financial aspects on a wide range of projects including retail, residential, ecclesiastical, defence and commercial. She has also worked in a consultancy position advising colleagues on contractual issues such as payment terms, pay less notices and claims and reviewing appointment documents to assess risk. Following the completion of her MSc in Dispute Resolution, Tracey went on to work as a claims consultant, providing claims and quantum advice and assisting with adjudication and arbitration proceedings, and expert witness reports. Currently she is employed by a law firm as a loss adjuster, advising insurers on the quantum aspects of professional indemnity claims and loss associated with damage to buildings caused by an insured event.

Ask Me About

Building Contracts Force majeure Construction

Project Description

Building contracts and unexpected events

The study investigates how unexpected events such as Covid-19 impact building projects in terms of delay and additional cost, and how effective the contract is at dealing with them in terms of whether the contractor is able to claim for the additional time and cost. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, in the construction industry press, much was written about the challenges of working through lockdown such as the reduced availability of both labour and materials, due to the restrictions imposed . Some contractors chose to close sites for a period of time due to health and safety concerns, whilst others, although continuing to operate, would have achieved much lower levels of productivity. These delays reduce the likelihood of the contractor being able to complete the works by the contractual completion date. Failure to achieve the completion date, enables the employer to deduct liquidated damages from the contractor's payments. Damages are stated in the contract as an amount to be deducted per week for each week the project is delayed by beyond the completion date. Any extended period on site beyond the contractual completion date would also incur additional costs for the contractor in the form of preliminaries which are the contractor's costs for site cabins, site manager etc that are incurred as a fixed amount on a weekly basis.

One of the contract terms in the JCT contract that might have entitled the contractor to an extension of time is force majeure, the only issue being that English law does not define force majeure and there is confusion over whether the pandemic qualifies as a force majeure event.

Interviews and questionnaires collected data from participants regarding how unexpected events had impacted their projects and which clauses of the contract had been invoked to award either additional time and / or money. This was combined with case law analysis to establish if force majeure provisions were being applied in accordance with how English law interprets force majeure.

The aim of the study is to produce a decision support system to attenuate the risks from unexpected events.