A construction surety bond claim is usually a claim made against the amount of money that has been set aside for the purpose of ensuring that the parties on a construction project including sub-contractors, laborers, suppliers, etc will be paid. A construction bond claim is typically used to claim payment on a state, country or municipal construction project. Sometimes things may go wrong in a construction project that is why, most of the project owners bond their projects to have someone to turn to when the contractor gets into trouble.
Another key reason to avail Florida surety bonds and to have an independent third party (surety company) is that the surety company first verifies whether the contractor is qualified to perform the job or not. This process is generally known as prequalification of the contractor. Under this process, the surety company evaluates the capital, capacity and character of the prospective contractor to guarantee the project owner that the contractor is able to complete the project before the surety commits to provide the bonds.
A construction bond claim should include the below mentioned information:
- Name, address and contact number of the claimant
- Name of the construction project
- Location of the construction project
- Name of the debtor
- Amount owned
- Request for a copy of the bond
Before sending a construction bond claim notice, it is important to note that different states have different guidelines and deadlines for bond claim. Therefore, make certain to check your state requirements. Some states may require you to send preliminary notices. However, these may be completely different to the preliminary notices required in the same state for private projects. Further, in order to avoid any disputes on your claim on construction bond, you must provide all the relevant paperwork and documents related to your contract.
Once a construction bond claim notice has been received, the surety’s first action is to investigate about the claim. The investigation process usually includes the following steps:
- Undertaking an extensive review of the contract documents to determine the extent of responsibility of all the parties to each other
- Determining what has transpired between the contractor and the project owner and finding out whether both the parties operated in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contract or not.