When I was a jobbing QS on my first contract in civils, a game appeared to be going on. This was replicated everywhere that I could see/hear about, and still seems to be going on a little bit today. Where a Contractor had a 'claim' he would eventually apply for additional time and/or money. Let's concentrate on the time bit. Word was that the independent impartial engineer would subsequently slice this by about 2/3 so guess what the Contractor did? Ramped it up accordingly of course. Client-side QS's also were issued with red pens in that era, what did we do with them? Use them of course to knock down star rate items the Contractor asked for in his application for additional works. So what, where am I rambling off to....
I read a really interesting article from a UK lawyer a while back (which I simply cannot find nor recall who, when etc) in which he suggested that asking for even 1 penny more than you knew you were due constituted fraud - how very interesting! I wonder how many surveyors (and perhaps other disciplines) have asked for more money than they knew they were entitled to? This of course would be a criminal offence and should therefore be taken extremely seriously.
So, any support or dissent to the notion that (and this might make quite an interesting dissertation) deliberately claiming even a penny more than you know you are entitled to constitutes fraud?
Answers on a postcard please......
Rob
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