The Variety of Methods for Handling A Building and Construction Disputes

Sometimes it is impossible to avoid a dispute, whether it's with a customer, your staff, suppliers or your management. You should make sure that you deal with a dispute as soon as possible. Your initial reaction should be to judge your strengths in the case. This will help to ascertain the way in which you deal with a dispute. You should assess your strength by looking at the paperwork between you and the person making the dispute and it is is wise to consider what your legal position would be.

If you have a contract with the person raising the dispute, does it have a section on disputes? If it doesn't you should refer back to any other paperwork to see if any mentions of dispute resolution were mentioned. If there is no paperwork involved then you will need to refer to the law surrounding the transaction to find out what your rights are. The majority of disputes are settled on by what was said in any paperwork and it is for this reason that you should try to make sure you have referred to it fully before taking other steps.

You should then consider what your objectives are. If you want the dispute to be an example to others then you may be more willing to do everything that you can to win the case. The other side to this would be if you have had a long standing, good relationship with a customer, then you may simply want to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and maybe even consider taking a small loss to ensure that you can keep a good relationship with the customer.

You should also ensure that you know what the person raising the dispute wants. If you have a moderate chance of success but your opponent does not have much money, you will be more likely to negotiate an outcome that is favourable to you as they will not be able to take the case to court. If you invest a lot into winning a case and your opponent does not have the money to pay, you may be at even more of a loss despite the fact that you won.

You will need to work out the costs carefully before you decide how to deal with a dispute. You should make sure that you will stand to profit from court proceedings after legal expenses have been deducted. Also if you are not sure that you will win the case, you will need to ask yourself if the amount of money that you are trying to recover is worth the risk of losing the case?

Once you have gone through these steps you should plan the way you will deal with the dispute. What tactics you will use. Not all disputes must go to court; you may want to consider an alternative dispute resolution service such as mediation which can often work out less expensive and time consuming.

I am a legal writer covering advice on topics of law, for further text and similar works visit building and construction disputes or contact a solicitor today.

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