Send the notice in the form, and to the address, the subcontract names
A notice buried in an email about something else, sent to whoever replied last, may not count as a notice at all. Use the subcontract's own words, name the clause, and send it where the subcontract says notices go, however formal that feels.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
Your subcontract usually says how a notice must be sent, where it goes and what it is called. It says so because your main contractor wants to be able to say that a notice which broke the rules was no notice. A paragraph in an email about something else, sent to the site agent because they replied last, can be argued away on all three counts. It looks like nitpicking until the money is refused on it. Your main contractor has no reason to point out the fault at the time. The first you hear of it is at the final account, long after the period for a proper notice has closed.
How to do it
- Copy the notice clause onto your notice list: the form required, who receives it, how it must be sent and any words it must use.
- Head each notice with the word notice, name the subcontract and the clause it is given under, and keep it to one subject.
- Send it to the person and address the subcontract names, by the route it names, even if your day-to-day contact is someone else.
- Copy your day-to-day contact separately to keep the working relationship going, but treat the formal copy as the one that counts.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A subcontract says notices must be in writing, headed as a notice, and sent to the main contractor's commercial director at head office. The subcontractor's site manager has been emailing the site agent about a £12,000 cost caused by late access. It is mentioned in the fourth paragraph of an email about deliveries.
What happens
- The commercial manager reads the notice clause. A separate notice goes to the commercial director at head office, headed as a notice and naming the clause.
- The same day, a copy goes to the site agent with a note that the formal notice has been sent.
- At the final account, the main contractor's surveyor argues that the email to the site agent was not a notice. The manager produces the headed notice, sent within the period.
The outcome
The £12,000 is agreed. The email alone would have been argued as no notice at all, and the subcontractor would have had nothing else to rely on.
To have this set up for you, see our Delay & Disruption Loss Prevention service.