Factors Affecting Occurrence of Claims in Building Projects in Lagos State, Nigeria

The occurrence of claims prevails in all projects, making the successful completion of projects within the predetermined budget a mirage. This is recognized to have added to costs of projects and adversely affected project performance. This paper aims at investigating critical factors influencing occurrence of claims in building projects in Lagos State, Nigeria. Forty-three (43) construction project attributes affecting project performance were identified through literature and presented to the key stakeholders in the study area using questionnaire survey. Two hundred and seventy-six (276) copies of the questionnaire were randomly administered to key stakeholders involved in the building construction process. One hundred and fifty-one (151) were retrieved representing 57.61% response rate. Principal component analysis of responses to a set of 43 characteristics identified through literature review extracted four components. The results indicated important factors such as: ‘Project Participant Characteristics’, ‘Basic Project Characteristic’, ‘Procurement Characteristics’, along with ‘Complexity Characteristics’ were factors influencing the occurrence of claims. It was concluded that the construction stakeholders should effectively manage these factors in minimising claims occurrence and thereby improving building projects delivery.