Dispute Avoidance

Fighting disputes is time consuming and expensive. We are well placed to offer advice on the technicalities involved in disputes, to provide specialist expertise and to assist and support a client in dealing with a potential dispute.

Dispute Management

If things have gone beyond the stage where a negotiated settlement is possible, we can help clients to prepare for the formal dispute resolution process involving mediation, conciliation, arbitration, litigation.

Dispute Resolution

John Costello is a very experienced adjudicator, arbitrator, conciliator and mediator and has successfully resolved many construction related disputes. He also acts as an expert witness for building owners and contractors.

John's many years working as a QS has given him the experience needed to understand the issues that can arise on sites and the approach that many clients and contractors can take.

Dispute Avoidance

We helped a contractor to settle a row about his final account without the need to go to conciliation or arbitration. We became involved about a year after practical completion when no progress was being made and entrenched viewpoints were being taken by both the building owner and contractor. Relations between the contractor and the building owner and his design team were strained. There were differences in the extent of variations, their values and the extent of snag items...

Dispute Management

We were appointed by a contractor in dispute over a substantial commercial development contract. Our brief was to advise on ways to settle or fight and act as expert witness should the dispute not be settled. Despite numerous attempts to reach a compromise, the dispute went to conciliation. John Costello prepared expert witness reports on variations, delay costs, loss of overheads and profit and gave evidence at the conciliation hearing...

Expert Witness

We were engaged by a solicitor acting for a client whose building had not been completed by the contractor. The client had engaged other contractors to complete the work but there were some defects in the original contractor’s work and the cost of completing the work had been substantially more than the original contractor’s price. The claim was ultimately being met by an insurance company and the solicitor was negotiating a settlement with it but he needed input from a construction expert to collate the cost of completion...

Welcome to Costello Surveyors - the Dispute Resolution Experts

We have over 40 years’ experience in the construction industry, including medical, commercial, residential, infrastructure and education. Managing Director, John Costello, has been in quantity surveying throughout his career. In 2007, he established Costello Surveyors to offer specialist advice and consultancy services to the construction sector, particularly in regard to dispute resolution.

John has acted as conciliator, adjudicator, arbitrator and expert witness on numerous occasions. He has also guided clients in dispute avoidance and successfully aided them to reach an acceptable settlement by negotiation. Highly qualified and very experienced, he is active in the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland and currently sits on the Quantity Surveying Professional Group committee .