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Diarise the quotation period the day you are asked to quote

Once your main contractor asks you to quote, the period for sending the quotation starts that day. It is 3 weeks in the unamended NEC4 main contract, and whatever your subcontract sets. Put the date in the diary the day the instruction arrives, and if you need longer, agree an extension before the period ends. A quotation that misses its period lets the other side make its own assessment.

Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.

Why it matters

The quotation period is short, and it starts on a day nobody on site notices: the day the instruction to quote arrives, usually one email among twenty. The team treats it like a variation price, to send when the cost is known, and the period passes. The contract then lets your main contractor make its own assessment, and the side paying for the event rarely assesses it generously. Extensions exist, but only if agreed before the period ends. The defence is a diary date set the day the instruction lands, and an early decision on whether the period is long enough.

How to do it

  1. Log every instruction to quote the day it arrives, with the date received and the period your subcontract gives.
  2. Put the submission date in the diary, with a checkpoint halfway through to decide whether the quotation can be finished in time.
  3. Write to agree an extension before the period ends if the quotation cannot be finished, giving the reason and your proposed new date. Put the agreed date in the diary.
  4. Put the reply period in the diary from the day you submit, so a missing reply is noticed and acted on.

Example

Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.

The facts

A cladding subcontractor on an NEC subcontract is asked on a Monday to quote for a changed fixing detail. The subcontract's quotation period is 3 weeks, and the revised bracket design will not be issued for another 10 days.

What happens

  1. The instruction is logged that day. The submission date goes in the diary 3 weeks out, with a checkpoint at the end of the first week.
  2. At the checkpoint the bracket design is still not issued. The commercial manager writes proposing a 2-week extension, which the main contractor agrees before the period ends.
  3. The quotation goes in on the agreed date at £46,000, built on the issued design, and the reply period goes in the diary from that day.

The outcome

The quotation is accepted at £43,500 after one revision. Sent late without an agreed extension, it would have let the main contractor make its own assessment.

To have this set up for you, see our Compensation Event Loss Prevention service.