We notified the compensation event and heard nothing back
The notification went in weeks ago, no reply has come, and the event is sitting unimplemented.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
What's happening?
A notification with no reply feels like an open question, so it gets left open. The event sits on the log as notified, nobody quotes, and it drifts towards the final account.
The compensation event procedure gives your main contractor a period to reply. In the unamended form, you can notify its failure to reply. If the silence then carries on for the further period the contract gives, the event is treated as accepted and a quotation as instructed. Your amendments may change those periods or that step, so read them first.
Waiting for the silence to end costs you, not your main contractor. Until you notify the failure to reply, nothing in the procedure moves. By the time anyone asks about the event, the records behind its cost have gone cold.
The solution
Check the reply period in your subcontract and count it from the date the notification was served. If it has passed, notify the failure to reply through the contract's communication system and put the further period in the diary. Compensation Event Claim does this first for every unanswered event, then prepares the quotation for each one accepted or treated as accepted.
Compensation Event Loss Prevention puts a diary date on every reply period from the day each notification goes. A silent main contractor is then spotted the day the period ends, not at the final account.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A mechanical subcontractor on an NEC subcontract notifies three compensation events in March. They are a late handover of the ceiling void, a changed plant room layout, and a late chiller the main contractor was to provide. By the end of May none has had a reply.
What happens
- The subcontract is read. The reply period is unamended, and a failure to reply can be notified.
- The notification dates are checked against the communication system's records. All three reply periods have passed.
- A notice of the failure to reply goes for each event through the communication system, and the further period goes in the diary.
- The main contractor accepts two of the events within the further period and instructs quotations. The third passes in silence and is treated as accepted.
- Quotations for all three go in within their periods, built from the records: £9,800, £14,200 and £6,500.
The three events
| Event | Quotation |
|---|---|
| Late handover of the ceiling void | £9,800 |
| Changed plant room layout | £14,200 |
| Late chiller | £6,500 |
The outcome
All three events are priced and in the procedure within 6 weeks. Left on the log as notified, they would have reached the final account unpriced, with records nobody could find.