1. Plunder and heft exist when conditions the builder has the risk of, the contractor incurs additional costs in the performance of other work
2. The additional costs in question are then costs that come in addition to the contractor's handling of it, or those, relevant builder circumstances that will have been subject to its own separate claims for, for example, additional costs and/ or deadline extension
3. It is incumbent upon the contractor a relatively heavy burden of proof to establish the existence of such a situation which has caused him plunder and heft
4. Recent case law has drawn up clear guidelines on how the contractor should proceed in such cases with regard to securing timely evidence in the form of discrepancy reports, photos, timesheets, etc.
5. It is important that the contractor continuously transmits his documentation to the builder so that the contractor has the opportunity to check and, if necessary, submit his comments.
6. If the builder disagrees with what comes from the contractor, the builder himself should secure documentation and prepare “against” reports that are sent to the contractor for comments.
7. Plunder and heft claims have traditionally been in part very high and this may be due to previous case law where courts have largely passed on the claims and perhaps awarded the contractor 20-30% of the claim. Today, there are stricter requirements for documentation with the associated limited exercise of discretion.
8. The consequence is that currently it is either the case that the entrepreneur loses his entire claim as a result of lack of (credible) documentation. Alternatively, the documentation is good enough and the contractor is awarded up to 80% of his claim.
9. Either way, both parties will have to deal completely differently and far more actively by claims of plunder and heft, than in the past.
