Case studies
What the work looks like.
Work is described by sector, side of the contract and scale rather than by name. Construction confidentiality survives completion, and on a small job a precise description identifies the parties just as surely as naming them.
Engagement types
Four shapes most of it takes.
These are the engagements, not the jobs. What starts one, what is actually done and what lands on your desk at the end. Live work is not described while it is running.
Before you sign
What starts it
Tenders are in and they are not comparable. Different inclusions, different exclusions, different assumptions about the things nobody priced. The cheapest number is rarely the cheapest job and it is hard to prove that in a spreadsheet.
The work
Every tender put onto the same basis, line by line, with the gaps and the double-counts named. The contract read commercially, not just legally: the margin mechanism on a cost plus, the provisional sums, the time bars, who carries latent conditions, what the programme actually commits the builder to.
What you get
A written assessment with the adjusted comparison, the risks that are priced and the ones that are not, and a negotiating position for each one. Used to negotiate before signing, which is the only point at which it is cheap.
Through delivery
What starts it
The job is running and the paperwork is not. Progress claims arrive and get paid because nobody has time to assess them, variations turn up with no written instruction behind them, and the programme on the wall stopped matching the site weeks ago.
The work
Claims assessed against the contract and against what is actually built. Variations priced and either agreed or rejected with reasons. Notices issued in time, because most entitlement is lost on a date rather than on the merits. The register kept so the position can be reconstructed months later.
What you get
A live project portal: programme, budget and committed cost, every document at its current revision, contracts, payments and open matters. Plus the assessments themselves, in writing, as each claim comes in.
When the cost is wrong
What starts it
The design prices well over budget, and the response on offer is to cut area or cut quality. Both are usually the last thing to cut and the first thing suggested.
The work
The cost interrogated where it actually sits: structure and footings, facade build-up, services distribution, the buildability decisions that add weeks of labour for no visible benefit. Engineering options tested with engineering tools, not asserted. Each option carried with its saving, its consequence and what it needs from the consultant team to be real.
What you get
A value management register: option, saving, risk, who has to approve it, and what it does to the programme. Priced against the same basis as the tender so the numbers can be compared rather than argued about.
When it has gone wrong
What starts it
A payment has been withheld, a claim has been rejected, or a defect is being argued about and the correspondence has started to sound legal. The commercial question and the emotional one are tangled together.
The work
The entitlement established under the contract and the security of payment legislation, and separately the evidence that will actually support it. Those two are not the same and the gap between them decides most claims. Where a solicitor is needed, that is said early, and the work runs alongside them rather than in competition.
What you get
A position written down: what is recoverable, what it will cost to pursue, what it is likely to return, and the recommendation — including where the recommendation is to accept a poor outcome because pursuing it costs more than it recovers.
Where a client is willing to be named, they are named. Nobody is named without their agreement in writing, and no outcome is described as a saving that cannot be evidenced.
Your situation is not on this page.
It never is. The first conversation is free and it is usually enough to tell whether there is a problem worth paying to solve.