Follow every delay notice with the particulars your subcontract asks for
A delay notice keeps your right to more time open, but it is the particulars that get the extension decided. A notice with nothing after it gives your main contractor the easiest reason to do nothing.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
Why it matters
Most subcontracts expect your notice to be followed, within a set period, by particulars. That means the detail of the cause and your estimate of the effect on your completion date, updated as things change. Your main contractor cannot decide an extension it has not been given the material to decide. When no particulars arrive, the usual answer is no answer. Months later the notice is on file, the extension was never granted, and damages are counted from the original date. The particulars do not need to be a programme analysis. They need the event, the dates, the work affected, what your team did instead and your best estimate of the effect, with the records that show it. Kept up as the event runs, they also become the record the whole question is later decided on.
How to do it
- Put the particulars deadline in the diary the day the notice goes out.
- Set out the event, its dates, the work it affected, what your team did instead and your estimate of the effect on your completion date.
- Attach the records: access and information logs, diary entries, photographs and the correspondence about the event.
- Send updates when the effect changes, and chase in writing if no decision arrives within the period your subcontract gives.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
A cladding subcontractor notifies a delay caused by late frame drawings from the main contractor's designer. The subcontract requires particulars and an estimate within 21 days of the notice, and a decision within 28 days of receiving them.
What happens
- The particulars go in on day 18. The drawing register shows 3 drawings issued between 11 and 19 working days late. The diary shows the gang switched to another elevation.
- The estimate is 12 working days on the subcontract completion date, updated a month later to 9 when one elevation recovers.
- No decision arrives within the 28 days, so a written chase goes in, citing the period for a decision.
The outcome
The main contractor grants 9 working days. When the account is settled, those 9 days take £22,500 off the proposed damages, at £2,500 a day.
To have this set up for you, see our Delay Damages Prevention service.