Study On The Legal Problems Of Claim In Construction Period

Claim is a concrete manifestation of the legal effect of the contract, which is an important way to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the parties and make up for the loss of the project as well as improve economic efficiency. Due to the impact of the planned economic system, China’s construction industry lacks of legal concepts, contract conscious and the construction delay claims in strict sense. Until the mid-1980s, the concept of the construction delay claims introduced into China, and brings a strong shock to the Chinese construction industry. As for the construction delay claims, we should first clarify the start date, completion date, and the concept of duration. The construction delay claims has its own unique legal characteristics which is based on full compensate and principle of strict liability, also it is time-efficient. There are many reasons that caused the delays of the project, including the reasons for the employer, the contractor and reasons not attributable to the both parties, each type of reason has different responsibility approach and content. This paper intends to divide the reason of construction schedule delays into the above three categories, and analysis the detailed of the reasons for each category by examples. If the delays were caused by employer, they shall be liable for the loss of the delay. The contractor entitled for the compensation of related costs and the rights to get the reasonable profits, also to extend the construction. If the delays were caused by the contractor, the contractor shall be liable for the loss; the employers are entitled to the late penalty and extend the rights of works completed defects liability period. Reasons that are not attributable to both parties should be analysis case by case. The construction delay claims should be made in accordance with the appropriate procedures, or it will face the risk of overdue claims and are easy to lose rights. The construction delay claims is a special time regime that applicable to the construction field, which is different from the statute of limitations and the scheduled period, but there are similarities with the two. The party concerned cannot make arbitrary changes to the clause of construction delay claims that not conducive to the other party.