Notice Requirements and Records
Last reviewed 9 September 20262,273 words10 min read
The paperwork that wins or loses it
🟩 In one line — More EOT claims fail on a missed notice than on a bad analysis: FIDIC gives 28 days from awareness, NEC gives 8 weeks, both as conditions precedent — and the analysis that follows is only as good as the daily reports, updated programmes and dated correspondence that exist to support it. Send the notice early, send it even when unsure, and keep the records as if the dispute has already started.
👤 Who this is for — Everyone. Juniors need to know what to flag to the contracts team and when; seniors need the clause numbers. Short page, dense on purpose.
First, let's be honest about why this page exists
The planner is usually the first person on the project to know a delay has started — the activity didn't start, the drawing didn't arrive, the access wasn't there. The planner is also usually the last person who thinks it's their job to say so in writing. Three weeks later, at the monthly meeting, someone mentions it; a letter goes out the following week; it's day 32. Under FIDIC 1999 Cl 20.1, the claim is gone.
Records are the other half. A TIA is only as strong as the dates in it, and the dates come from daily reports that were filled in properly, photos that were taken, and updates that were statused truthfully. No amount of P6 skill recovers a claim with no notice and no records.
🟨 The standard — what "good" looks like
Notice clocks
| Contract | Notice | From when | Consequence of missing it | Then what |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIDIC 1999 Cl 20.1 | 28 days | When the Contractor became aware, or should have | Time for Completion not extended; claim barred | Fully detailed claim within 42 days; contemporary records kept; Engineer responds within 42 days |
| FIDIC 2017 Cl 20.2.1 | 28 days | Same | Barred; Engineer must give notice of the time-bar (20.2.2) within 14 days, or the notice is deemed valid | Fully detailed claim within 84 days (20.2.4); Engineer agrees or determines within 42 days under Cl 3.7 (20.2.5) |
| NEC3 / NEC4 Cl 61.3 | 8 weeks | Becoming aware of the event | No change to Prices, Completion Date or Key Dates — unless the PM should have notified it and didn't | PM responds within 1 week (61.4); quotation within 3 weeks (62.3) |
| NEC3 Cl 16 / NEC4 Cl 15 | Early warning "as soon as" aware | Any matter that could delay, increase cost, or impair performance | Not a bar, but assessment may be reduced as if warning had been given (NEC3 63.5 / NEC4 63.7) | Risk (NEC3) / early warning (NEC4) register and meeting |
Records
| Reference | Requirement |
|---|---|
| FIDIC 1999 Cl 20.1 | Contractor keeps contemporary records; Engineer may inspect and instruct further records |
| FIDIC 2017 Cl 20.2.3 | Same, with the term defined — records prepared or generated at the same time as the event |
| FIDIC 1999/2017 Cl 6.10 | Records of personnel and equipment on site, submitted monthly |
| FIDIC 1999/2017 Cl 4.21 | Monthly progress reports with prescribed content, including comparison of actual and planned progress |
| NEC3/NEC4 Cl 32 | Revised programme showing actual progress, effects of implemented CEs, and changes to planned Completion |
| SCL Protocol Core Principle 1 | Programme and records — the Contractor should keep records and the Employer should insist on them; Part B §1 lists six categories |
| SCL Core Principle 3 | Follow the contractual procedure; notices should be given even where the delay's effect is not yet known |
🟢 Rule to remember: notice within 28 days under FIDIC, 8 weeks under NEC, counted from when you should have known — send it before you're sure, and write today's record as if it will be read by a stranger in three years.
How it actually works
Who sends the notice. The contracts or commercial team signs it. The planner triggers it. Agree on the project that any of these goes to the contracts manager the same day: an Employer-risk activity that hasn't started on its planned date; a drawing, approval or access more than a few days overdue; an instruction that changes scope or sequence; an unusual site condition; an Engineer's comment that amounts to an instruction.
What a notice needs to say. Less than people think. That an event has occurred, what it is, roughly when, that it is or may be an Employer-risk event under clause X, and that the Contractor intends to claim time (and cost, if relevant). Effect not yet known is fine — say so and promise particulars. The template-delay-notice page has the letter. What kills a notice is being a "report" — buried in a monthly narrative, or worded so softly ("we note with concern…") that the Engineer can argue it wasn't a notice at all.
Counting the days. From awareness, or when you should have been aware — the second limb means the planned date on the accepted programme is usually the trigger. Calendar days. If in doubt, send it. A notice for something that turns out not to be a delay costs nothing; a missed notice for something that is costs everything.
Ongoing events. Give the first notice, then interim particulars monthly (FIDIC 1999 Cl 20.1 fourth paragraph; 2017 Cl 20.2.6). The monthly update and narrative can carry them if they're explicit and referenced back to the notice number.
The records that matter for delay
| Record | Who keeps it | Why it matters | Common failure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Updated programme, each data date, with narrative stating the critical path | Planner | The base for every TIA; the concurrency evidence | Updated but not archived; narrative says nothing about criticality |
| Delay register (event, dates, activities, notice ref) | Planner | Turns scattered events into a claim skeleton | Started in month 18 |
| Daily site report: labour by trade and location, plant, weather, work done, work prevented and why | Site engineer / foreman | Proves who was where and what stopped them | "Ongoing works" as the only entry; no location; no "prevented" column |
| Dated, geotagged photographs, weekly per zone | Site team | Settles arguments about when a thing existed | Taken only when something looks good |
| Access / handover certificates, signed both sides | Contracts | Fixes the date the Employer says was different | Verbal handover, no paper |
| RFI, submittal and approval logs with dates in and out | Document control | Proves the review took 40 days, not 14 | Log not exported; system access lost at project end |
| Meeting minutes with actions and dates | Contracts / PM | Contemporaneous acknowledgement by the other side | Unsigned drafts; disputed later |
| Correspondence register | Document control | Shows the notice went in, and when | Emails without register numbers |
| Delivery notes, fabrication dispatch, inspection requests and results | QA/QC, procurement | Fragnet durations come from these | Kept by the subcontractor only |
The planner's own discipline. Archive each update as an XER and a PDF on the data date, with the narrative. Note the critical and near-critical paths in every narrative — one paragraph. Keep the delay register in the same folder. When you leave the project, hand all of it over (see handing-over-a-schedule). These three habits are, in practice, the difference between a claim that can be built and one that can't.
Gulf context. Time bars are generally enforced in the UAE, KSA and Qatar; some tribunals have softened them on good-faith grounds under the civil codes, but nobody should plan on that. Treat the clock as absolute.
🟥 Where people go wrong
- Waiting until you're sure it's a delay. The clause counts from awareness of the event, not from confirmation of its effect. SCL Core Principle 3 says notify anyway. Day 29 is too late however clear it's become.
- Notice by narrative. The monthly report mentions the late drawings on page 14. The Engineer will say that isn't a notice under Cl 20.1, and will often be right. Separate letter, clause quoted, claim intention stated.
- Daily reports that record nothing useful. Twenty pages of "works ongoing", no locations, no "prevented" column. When the fragnet needs to show the fixers stood idle for four days, the daily report shows forty fixers on site and nothing else.
- Updates overwritten, not archived. The month-9 XER was updated in place to become month 10. There is no month 9. The TIA for the month-9 event now starts from a reconstruction, and reconstructions are disputed.
- Letting the subcontractor hold the records. Delivery notes, fabrication dates, their daily allocation — all with them. When the relationship sours or the sub goes, so does the evidence.
- No one owns the trigger. The planner assumes contracts knows; contracts assumes the site told them. Agree in writing who triggers what, and put the trigger list on the wall.
⚖️ When you're challenged
"Your notice is day 31. Time-barred." "The event is the late access, which was due 12 March under the accepted programme. Access was granted piecemeal — the last section came on 19 March, and our notice references that date. From 19 March the letter is day 24. If the Engineer's position is that awareness dates from the 12th, we'd note our notice under Cl 20.1 was also given prospectively on 8 March when the Employer's utility first advised a possible delay — letter 187, attached."
"You haven't shown any records for the idle period." "Daily reports for 4 to 9 May are attached; the 'work prevented' column shows Zone C fixers redeployed to Zone A housekeeping, with the reason given as awaiting access. The photos from the 6th show the fenced-off area. And the Engineer's own representative countersigned the report on the 7th."
"Why should we accept a reconstructed programme for the base?" "You shouldn't have to, and it isn't one. The April update was submitted on 3 May — transmittal 0142 — and your comments on it were closed on 14 May. That's the base. The only reconstruction is statusing it forward 11 days to the day before the event, from the daily reports, and each date is footnoted."
📄 Related pages
- Extension of Time Basics — where the notice sits in the four legs
- Template delay notice — the letter, ready to fill
- FIDIC Time Clauses — Cl 8 and 20 in planner's language
- NEC Accepted Programme — Cl 31/32 and how CEs are notified and quoted
- Writing a progress narrative — recording the critical path every month
- Handing over a schedule — the archive the next planner and the claim both need
- Time Impact Analysis — what the records feed
- Weekly Report and Look-Ahead — the daily report's weekly summary, and what it must include
✏️ Worked example
Data centre shell and core, Riyadh, FIDIC 2017. The trigger list agreed at kick-off and how it worked on one event.
| Date | What happened | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Mon 3 Feb | Planned date for Engineer's approval of chiller submittal (accepted programme, activity PR-CH-030, 21-day review period) | Planner flags to contracts: due today, not received |
| Tue 4 Feb | Contracts sends "awaiting approval" reminder — not a notice | Logged as DR-11 in delay register, status "watching" |
| Mon 10 Feb | Still not received; chiller PO can't be placed; procurement lead 26 weeks | Planner confirms PR-CH-030 has 4 days float; runs forward: critical on 7 Feb |
| Tue 11 Feb | Notice under Cl 20.2.1 issued — letter 231. Event: late approval; clause: 1.9 / 8.5(a) as a delay by the Employer's Personnel; effect: not yet quantified; particulars to follow | Day 8 from planned date. Register updated with letter ref |
| 26 Feb | Approval received (23 days late) | DR-11 closed for cause; effect ongoing through procurement |
| 3 Mar | Interim particulars in monthly update narrative, referencing letter 231; prospective TIA: 17 working days to completion | Reflection archived: base 31 Jan update, impacted, comparison |
| 28 Apr | Fully detailed claim (day 76 from notice, within 84) with actual PO date, vendor's revised delivery, updated TIA: 15 working days | Records attached: submittal log, letter 231, PO, vendor correspondence, daily reports for the affected plant-room activities |
| 9 Jun | Engineer's determination under Cl 3.7 — 15 days | — |
The entire claim ran on a register entry made on 4 February, a letter sent on the 11th, and an XER archived on the 3rd of March. The analysis took two days. The records took eight minutes a day for the whole project.
📖 References
- FIDIC Conditions of Contract for Construction 1999, Cl 1.3, 4.21, 6.10, 8.4, 20.1; FIDIC 2017, Cl 1.3, 3.7, 4.20, 6.10, 8.5, 20.2.1–20.2.7 (check the edition in your contract)
- NEC3 ECC Cl 16, 32, 61.3, 61.4, 61.5, 62.3, 63.5; NEC4 ECC Cl 15, 32, 61.3, 61.4, 62.3, 63.7 (check the edition in your contract)
- Society of Construction Law, Delay and Disruption Protocol, 2nd ed. (2017), Core Principles 1 and 3; Part B §1 (records)
- AACE International RP 29R-03, Forensic Schedule Analysis — source validation and records
- Oracle Primavera P6 Professional User Guide — Reflections, Export XER, Notebook Topics
General guidance, not legal advice. Contract wording, editions and amendments differ on every project. Read your own contract and take professional advice before relying on anything here in a claim or a dispute.
From the field
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