What a Project Recovery Diagnostic Actually Includes (GHS 1,500, Ghana 2026)

What a Project Recovery Diagnostic Actually Includes (GHS 1,500, Ghana 2026)
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See exactly what the GHS 1,500 Recovery Diagnostic covers: 8 assessed dimensions, a written report, a five-stage Recovery Workspace and an assigned facilitator — before you risk a blind restart.

The moment a Ghanaian building stalls, the clock does not stop. Every harmattan and rainy season keeps working on the structure whether or not you are paying attention. Steel left exposed keeps corroding. Concrete that never got its protection keeps soaking up moisture and weakening. Architect Justin Mensah has documented exactly this decay pattern — rusting steel and porous concrete are the quiet reasons so many restarts die a second time.

Yet the most common response to a stalled build is still the same: throw money at it and hope. A few bags of cement, a new contractor, a vague promise. See what the GHS 1,500 Recovery Diagnostic covers.

The stakes are plain. The Ghana Statistical Service 2021 census counted roughly 825,367 unrooted or uncompleted structures, with around 15% more standing roofed but still incomplete. Analysts such as Sikanomist (Locked Capital) put the value of capital frozen inside these shells in the hundreds of billions of cedis. And a lintel-level three-bedroom typically needs roughly GHS 250,000–400,000 to complete, while a full restart after serious decay usually runs beyond GHS 700,000.

Spending GHS 1,500 to find out what you are actually restarting, before that money moves, is not an expense. It is the cheapest insurance you can buy in Ghana construction.

The 8 dimensions of our project recovery diagnostic Ghana

The Recovery Diagnostic does not give your building a quick look and a gut feeling. It runs eight dimensions — each one a real failure point that stalls Ghanaian projects — and produces a concrete finding for every one.

• Land, title and document position. Whose land is it, and can that be proven today? A Lands Commission search, the tenancy and acquisition trail, and whether the 0.5% stamp duty payable through the Ghana Revenue Authority was ever instrumented. A clean title is the difference between finishing and being locked out of your own foundation.
• Structural condition and material decay. What the weather has done to exposed columns, beams, ring beams and slabs since the last work day. Rusting steel and porous concrete get priced in here, properly.
• Build status and verified cost-to-complete. Exactly which stage the building reached — foundation, lintel, roofing — and what finishing it costs at real 2026 rates. ExactoCost’s live Ghana pricing puts current build rates around GHS 4,500–7,500 per m², cement near GHS 101 per bag, rebar around GHS 9,800 per tonne. Those numbers change the finish bill.
• Permits, approvals and drawings. Whether the building permit is still valid, whether the working drawings match what is on the ground, and what needs re-approval before a wall rises again.
• Contractor and contract position. Who was paid, for what, on what contract, and who is still owed. The most common way a restart stalls again is hiring blind over an unresolved first contractor.
• Materials and site assets. What is still on site, what is salvageable, and what is now scrap. Stored cement older than a few months is often a liability, not an asset.
• The money trail. What has actually gone into the structure, in cash and materials, so the decision rests on the true sunk cost.
• The decision map. Finish, restart, or hold-and-sell, with a reasoned trade-off for each, built from the other seven dimensions rather than from hope.

Every dimension ends in a finding, and every finding has a consequence in cedis — which is the difference between this and a friend walking your site and saying “it looks okay.”

The written report: what you actually receive

The output is a written report in plain language — no architecture degree required to read it. It opens with a one-page summary: the single most important risk to your build, a verified cost-to-complete in GHS against 2026 prices, and a straight answer on whether this building should be finished, restarted, or sold. The body then walks through all eight dimensions with findings, the evidence behind each, and a “critical / can wait / cosmetic” priority on every item.

The figures are real prices, not 2019 rememberings: a finish you thought cost GHS 150,000 is priced honestly against ExactoCost’s live Ghana pricing, and a tiling job is quoted against the GHS 25,000–30,000 full-house range flagged by 7StepsToAfrica’s finish-cost breakdown. The report also lists the permit and title actions that must happen first, and the top three risks that would stall a restart if ignored.

You do not need to hand that report back to us to act on it. It is yours — take it to any contractor, engineer or architect you trust, and walk in with numbers and risks already on paper.

The Recovery Workspace: Triage → Evidence → Plan → Execution → Verification

The diagnostic is delivered inside a Recovery Workspace built around five stages, so nothing gets skipped and nothing is claimed without proof:

• Triage — the free 2-minute diagnosis you take first, which sorts your situation into a clear category: stalled early, stalled late, stopped by money, stopped by land, or stopped by people.
• Evidence — the eight-dimension assessment itself, where every finding is backed by a document, a site check, or a verified market price.
• Plan — the written report converted into an ordered sequence: what to secure, what to approve, what to pay, in what order, at what cost.
• Execution — the finish or restart run through the plan, ordered so money moves only after the foundations of the project are healthy again.
• Verification — a check that each stage was actually delivered, so the project records match reality instead of memory.

An assigned facilitator follows your case through the workspace — a real person attached to your file who pulls the evidence together, arranges the assessment, and produces the report. You are not left alone inside a portal, and the framework for weighing finish versus restart is in our finish-or-restart cost guide — the diagnostic turns that framework into a verdict for your building.

The GHS 1,500 fee and the no-obligation rule

The fee is GHS 1,500, one-time, fixed. No hourly meter, no “while we’re at it” add-ons, no surprise extras when the report lands. Compare that with what actually moves in a stalled build: a single restart mobilisation, before any verifiable progress, runs tens of thousands of cedis into a contractor’s advance. GHS 1,500 is a fraction of what you will pay in professional supervision fees on a real finish.

There is also a deliberate no-obligation rule. The diagnostic ends at the report and the decision map. You are not required to continue into the Recovery Workspace, hire anyone we name, or buy anything else. If the truthful finding is “sell this one and start clean,” the report will say so — because insurance that pressures you to claim is not insurance.

Start with the free 2-minute diagnosis

The recovery path opens with the free 2-minute diagnosis — no payment, no card. It qualifies whether your build is structurally recoverable and tells you which of the eight dimensions is your likely blocker. If your building is genuinely gone, or the land position impossible, you deserve to hear that from the free screen before spending GHS 1,500 — so the paid diagnostic only appears once the free screen says your case is recoverable.

From there, the Recovery Diagnostic delivers the eight-dimension assessment, the written report, the five-stage Recovery Workspace and your assigned facilitator. Our guide on getting a stalled build back on track after years and the contractor vetting post cover the sequencing and the vetting — both read completely differently once you carry a diagnostic report.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly are the eight dimensions assessed?

Land and title position; structural condition and material decay; build status and a verified cost-to-complete against 2026 prices; permits, approvals and drawings; contractor and contract position; materials and site assets; the money trail; and a final decision map weighing finish, restart, or sell. Each dimension produces a written finding, and each finding carries a GHS figure or a required action.

How long does the diagnostic take, and when do I get the report?

Most assessments finish within days of the free diagnosis. The exact window depends on how fast documents — title papers, permits, payment records — arrive and whether a site visit is needed. You get the written report as soon as all eight dimensions have findings; the one-page summary at the front gives you the verdict instantly.

Do I really need an assessment before restarting?

Only if you want to avoid funding a second stall. Roughly 825,000 structures sit uncompleted in Ghana, and the standard reasons — rusting steel, porous concrete, lapsed permits, unresolved titles — are easy to re-blind yourself to once restart excitement starts. At GHS 1,500 against a restart that usually runs past GHS 700,000, this is the cheapest insurance you can buy.

What format does the report come in, and do I get a facilitator after it?

A written document in plain language, ordered from a one-page summary through the eight findings and the cost-to-complete. An assigned facilitator stays attached to your case through the Recovery Workspace — Triage, Evidence, Plan, Execution, Verification. You are never handed a file and abandoned.

Is there any obligation to continue after the report?

None. The GHS 1,500 covers the diagnostic and the report, and you are free to take the findings to any contractor, engineer or architect. If the honest verdict is that the building should be sold rather than finished, the report will say so — it is designed to protect your wallet, not to manufacture a project.

Is my information kept confidential?

Yes. Site details, documents and payment records you share are used only to produce your report and are never published or passed to third parties. Diaspora owners working remotely can submit documents digitally and still receive the full diagnostic.

Pricing every option against today’s rates? The Ghana Build Price Board (2026) carries current cement, rebar and labour figures, refreshed quarterly.