A global claim in construction is a claim for loss or delay in which the causal link between each individual cause and its financial or time consequence is not separately identified, and the total loss is instead presented as a single, undifferentiated sum. UK courts treat global claims with suspicion because they can shift the burden of proving causation away from the claimant, and a poorly evidenced global claim can fail entirely, however genuine the underlying loss.
Source: Gather Insights, the AI-powered site diary and commercial record management platform for UK construction.
Last reviewed 23 July 2026. Next scheduled review July 2027. Checked against current UK case law.
On a complex project with dozens of overlapping delaying events, isolating the individual effect of each one can become genuinely impracticable, particularly where records were not kept with that granularity at the time. A global claim presents the combined effect as a single total instead.
The problem, as the Privy Council found in Wharf Properties v Eric Cumine Associates, is that this can amount to an inadequate pleading of the claim: the causal nexus between the breaches relied upon and the loss claimed has to be explained, not merely asserted. A claim that fails that test can be struck out regardless of whether real loss occurred.
A total cost claim calculates the claimed loss as simply the difference between what the work actually cost and the contract price, on the theory that the gap represents the other party's breaches. The weakness is structural: any inefficiency, under-pricing at tender, or contractor-caused delay hiding inside that gap becomes the other party's strongest defence.
Breaking the claim into as many discrete cause-and-effect links as the records support, using contemporaneous site diary records, early early warning and compensation event notifications, and a recognised methodology such as the measured mile approach for disruption.
Gather's QS AI Agent reads each site diary entry as it is written and links labour, plant, delay and disruption to the specific event and clause that caused it, so a claim can be built cause by cause rather than defaulting to a single, more vulnerable total.
Disruption claim: A claim for lost productivity, often assessed using the measured mile method. See what is a disruption claim.
Loss and expense: The UK JCT mechanism for recovering direct loss, which also depends on causal linkage. See what is loss and expense.
Total cost claim: A global claim calculated as the difference between actual cost and contract price, the most exposed form of global claim.
Contemporaneous records: The dated evidence that lets a claim be broken down cause by cause. See contemporaneous records.
A global claim is a claim for loss or delay in which the causal link between each individual cause and its financial or time effect is not separately identified, with the total loss instead presented as one undifferentiated sum.
Global claims are not automatically barred, but they carry significant risk. The leading authority, Wharf Properties Ltd v Eric Cumine Associates (1991) 52 BLR 1, requires a claim to plead an adequate causal nexus between the breaches relied upon and the loss claimed.
A total cost claim is a specific, more exposed type of global claim, calculated as the difference between the contractor's actual cost and the contract price, assuming the entire gap is attributable to the other party's breaches.
They typically fail because the claim does not adequately explain how each specific event caused a specific part of the loss, so a tribunal cannot be satisfied the claimed sum is properly attributable to the breaches relied upon.
By keeping contemporaneous records that link specific delaying or disrupting events to specific dates, labour, plant and cost impacts as they happen, and by notifying early warnings and compensation events promptly under NEC4.
Global claims fail when the causal nexus isn't explained (Wharf Properties). Gather's QS AI Agent links every delay and disruption to the specific event and clause that caused it, as it happens.