A Study of Construction Claim Management Problems in Malaysia

AbstractThe frequency of claims is unavoidable given the nature of the contracts, their complexity, the number of parties involved, the risk and the pressure of time constraint in the preparation of the contract documents and the realisation of the work. The significantly increasing number of construction claims indicates the need for the implementation of an effective construction claim management. This paper will look into claim problems experienced by Malaysian contractors in construction projects. To achieve this, questionnaires survey were conducted involving the contractors and consultants. The findings indicate that the lack of site staff awareness to proactively detect claims, inaccessibility or unavailability of relevant documents, and conflicts which arises during owner/contractor negotiation are all critical problems associated with the process of claim management. The problems observed from this research could be used to solve or improve the contractors’ claim management system