How to keep a site diary that holds up in a dispute

Because most construction disputes are about what happened on particular days, and the people who were there remember it differently a year later. An extension of time needs proof that a delay happened, when, and what it held up. A loss and expense claim needs the resources that stood idle. A disputed daywork sheet or variation needs proof of who was on site and who gave the instruction. The diary is where all of that is written down first.

Records relevant to progress and delay and disruption events must be generated contemporaneously as the works progress, and not afterwards. (Society of Construction Law Delay and Disruption Protocol, 2nd edition, paragraph 1.7)

The Protocol is guidance rather than law, and its list of daily records reads like a site diary: reports recording ‘weather conditions, manpower, deliveries of key materials, discovery of adverse site conditions, working hours, major plant and equipment used, and work activities underway’. Adjudication runs to a short statutory timetable, with no time to rebuild a lost month from memory, so the diary is often the best account of a given day that either side has.

Facts, with times, in the same order every day so a reader can compare one day with the next.

• Date, job and author. The full date, the job, and the name of whoever wrote the entry and when.
• Weather, with times and temperature. Not ‘rain’ but when it started and stopped, how heavy, and the temperature at the start of the day and early afternoon. Note what the weather stopped, such as concrete, brickwork in frost or roofing in wind.
• Labour by trade and company. Your own operatives and each subcontractor’s, with numbers per trade and their hours on site. Name them where it matters, for example against a daywork sheet.
• Plant. Each item on site, and whether it was working or standing.
• Deliveries. What arrived, from whom, at what time, against which order, and anything short, late or damaged.
• Visitors and instructions. Who came, when, and any instruction given, with what was said and how it will be confirmed in writing.
• Work done, by area. Where on the job (elevation, gridline, floor, room) and how far it got, in terms that match the activities on the programme.
• Delays and their cause. What was held up, from when, why, and what the operatives did instead. If nothing was delayed, say so.
• Information awaited. Each drawing, answer or decision you are waiting for, with the date you asked and the date you needed it.
• Safety events. Accidents, near misses, inspections and anything that stopped work. An accident may also need reporting under RIDDOR, which the diary does not do for you.
• Photos referenced. The photo numbers or file names taken that day, so each one can be tied to an entry.

The same day, written two ways. Both are true. Only one of them proves anything.

The strong entry lets somebody count rain hours across a month, tie the steel delay to an unanswered query with a date on it, price the change to the door opening, and check the subcontractor’s labour return against the hours on the day. The weak entry tells them that it rained and something was late.

The person running the site that day: the site manager, the foreman or, on a small job, the builder who owns the firm. One person writes each entry so the job has one account per day, and they collect the subcontractors’ labour numbers and any instructions from others before they write it.

Write it on the day, before leaving site or that evening, while the times are still known. A week written up on Friday afternoon reads like what it is, and the other side will notice. If a day is missed, write it as soon as you can, date it when written, and say plainly that it was written late and from what: notes, photos, timesheets or delivery notes.

Add, never overwrite. A correction is a new note saying what was wrong, what is right, who made the change and when. The original stays readable beside it.

1. 01On paper, use a bound book with numbered pages. Strike through once so the original can still be read, initial and date the change, and never use correction fluid or remove a page.
2. 02On a phone or computer, add the correction as a dated note on the entry rather than editing the original text away, and keep any edit history the system holds.
3. 03Explain the reason. ‘Delivery time corrected from 08:10 to 09:10 after checking the delivery note’ is a correction. A changed time with no note is a question nobody can answer.

NoteExpect to be asked when an entry was written and whether it was changed. A diary that has been tidied up after a dispute started can lose its weight entirely, including for the days that were never touched.

1. 01Written up later. Same pen, same tone and the benefit of hindsight across a whole week of entries.
2. 02Vague. ‘Delays due to weather’ with no times, no work affected and no temperature.
3. 03Copied from day to day. Identical wording repeated for a fortnight undermines every day in it, including the ones that were right.
4. 04Silent on delays. A diary that never records a problem is evidence that there was none, which is the opposite of what you will later claim.
5. 05Opinion instead of fact. ‘Architect useless again’ helps nobody. ‘Query 12 still unanswered, now 4 days late’ does.
6. 06Out of line with other records. Labour that does not match the timesheets, deliveries that do not match the notes, or daywork hours that do not match who was on site.

A diary records. A notice claims. Most building contracts require written notice of a delay, a change or an event that may cost money, sent to a named person within a set time. Read the notice clause in your contract: it says what must be notified, to whom, how and by when, and some contracts take away the entitlement if the notice is late.

Unless your contract says a diary entry counts as notice, treat the diary as the record and send the notice separately, in the form the contract asks for.

Use the diary as the trigger. When an entry records a delay, an instruction or information awaited past its date, ask that evening whether a notice is due. The notice can then cite the diary entries by date, and the diary carries on recording the effect day by day until the delay ends. A client who can read your diary through a portal has still not been given notice.

At least as long as somebody could bring a claim about the job. In England and Wales, section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 says an action founded on simple contract cannot be brought after six years from the date the cause of action accrued, and section 8 sets twelve years for an action on a specialty, which includes a contract executed as a deed. The clock runs from the cause of action, not from the date of the diary entry, so measure from the end of the job at the earliest.

A diary that names operatives holds personal data, so UK GDPR applies to it. The ICO’s guidance on storage limitation says you must not keep personal data for longer than you need it and should have a policy setting standard retention periods. A limitation period is a clear reason for the period you choose, and writing it down is the policy.

One dated entry per job per day, with the author recorded. Each entry holds the weather and temperature, with the weather data stored on the entry, the workers and plant on site, and the work carried out, delays, visitors and notes as separate fields, so the delays on a job can be pulled out as a set rather than read out of months of paragraphs. Site photos can be linked to an entry so the evidence sits with the day it shows.

Entries can be written on site with no signal in offline field mode and are sent when the phone reconnects. If you give a client a portal login, they can see recent diary entries beside progress and photos; without one, the diary stays internal. See Estimark’s site diary.

• Limitation Act 1980, section 5 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Limitation Act 1980, section 8 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973, section 6 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Limitation (Northern Ireland) Order 1989, article 4 (legislation.gov.uk)
• Delay and Disruption Protocol, 2nd edition (Society of Construction Law)
• Storage limitation principle (ICO)