No published New Zealand figure for the value or share of variation disputes

What it is. None - New Zealand sources name variation claims as a common dispute issue but publish no amount, share of contract or share of claims for them.

Sample. Searched: New Zealand construction disputes causes survey variations delay payment latent conditions; New Zealand construction variations cost study Mbachu Domingo variation orders percentage of contract value; MBIE Construction Contracts Act review adjudication statistics; Silva Domingo Ameer Ali court cases New Zealand; Te Waihanga MBIE Law Commission construction disputes cost value adjudication. Frequencies exist: 13% of Russell McVeagh's 2020 respondents (no respondent count stated) expect variations to cause disputes, 39% of its 2026 respondents (95, late 2025) expect changes to the original scope of work to cause them (a different wording, so the two are not read as a trend), and variation entitlement is the area of 2 of 35 court cases in Silva et al. 2023 (my reading of the figure's matrix, not stated in the text), but none is a cost. Not opened: the Arcadis and HKA disputes reports (their published figures are global or North American; no New Zealand split was found); Jelodar et al. 2016 (ASCE, paywalled, read only as summarised in Silva et al. 2023).

What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose. No New Zealand source states what variation disputes are worth, as an amount, a share of contract value or a share of the amount claimed. The Australian and North American variation figures in the corpus are not New Zealand evidence.

Where it came from

• Building Disputes Tribunal (Te Taraipiunara Tautohe Hanga Whare) (2023), Tracking the Trends: A report on statutory adjudication in Aotearoa New Zealand 2003-2023
  'Types of issues', p.29 (the tribunal says it has not collected detailed statistics on the types of issues referred) · source record

Considered and set aside

• Russell McVeagh: 2020 survey: 13% of respondents expect variations to cause disputes and employer variations are seen as a leading cause of delay (pp.4, 10-11). Shares of respondents, no dollars.
• Russell McVeagh: 2026 survey of 95 New Zealand professionals (late 2025): 39% expect changes to the original scope of work to cause disputes over the next two years (pp.18-19); share of respondents, no dollars.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 35 court cases: Figure 3 marks variation entitlement in 2 cases and variation procedural in 2; no amounts. Too few cases to state a share.
• Hesketh Henry: Practitioner paper that puts variations among payment claims; no figures.
• Silva, Domingo and Ameer Ali (Massey University): 14 expert interviews on pre-contract steps (variation pricing rates and timeframes); counts of respondents, no dispute frequencies or amounts.
• Standards New Zealand: Draft contract wording for variations, and for unforeseen conditions being treated as a variation (clause 9.5); a mechanism, not data.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: 40 High Court payment cases say the disputes deal with variation costs among other items, with no split of claimed amounts.
• Ramachandra and Rotimi: Survey of payment problems whose introduction cites valuation of variations as a major subject of adjudication; the survey itself has no variation item.
• Department of Building and Housing: Regulatory impact statement on adjudication reform: no breakdown of disputes by cause, no values.

disputes/variation_dispute_none_nz · NZ · F ·the record ·link to this figure ·dispute this figure(or email support@demiton.io)