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Keep proof that the notice arrived

If you cannot show a notice arrived, your main contractor can say it never got it. Keep the proof of sending, such as the sent email, the tracking receipt or a signature, in the same file as the notice.

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

Why it matters

In a dispute, a notice you cannot prove arrived may as well never have been sent. Emails go to spam or to someone who has left. Nobody signs for the letter. A document handed over at a site meeting is denied a year later by someone who has genuinely forgotten. Your main contractor has every reason to say it never got it. The proof of sending turns your word into a fact. That might be the sent email with its attachment, the courier's signature, or an email saying here is what I gave you at 10am today. Keep it beside the notice, or it will not be found when you need it.

How to do it

  1. Send every notice by the route your subcontract names, and if email is allowed, keep the sent email with its attachment and the delivery receipt.
  2. Get a signature for anything handed over or posted, or send an email within the hour saying what was delivered, to whom and when.
  3. Save the proof in the same folder as the notice, named with the notice number and the date.
  4. Follow up an important notice with a call if no receipt comes back, and make a note of the call.

Example

Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.

The facts

A subcontract says notices must be posted to the main contractor's registered office. The subcontractor posts a notice of a cost event worth £31,000. It also hands a copy to the main contractor's project manager at Thursday's progress meeting.

What happens

  1. The commercial manager sends the letter by tracked post and saves the tracking receipt in the notice folder.
  2. After the meeting, the manager emails the project manager: copy of notice 14 handed to you at 10am today, original posted yesterday.
  3. At adjudication 14 months later, the main contractor says it never received the notice.
  4. The tracking receipt shows delivery on the Friday, and the email is among the papers in front of the adjudicator.

The outcome

The notice is accepted as received in time, and the £31,000 stays in the claim. Without the receipt and the email, it would have been the subcontractor's word against the main contractor's, with nothing on file to settle it.

To have this set up for you, see our Delay & Disruption Loss Prevention service.