Key takeaways
- Entitlement, causation and quantum are three separate questions, and most claims fail on the second.
- The relevant event must be shown to have moved the critical path of a schedule the parties can accept.
- Notice and records obligations are conditions of the claim, not administrative formalities.
Three questions, answered in order
Every extension of time claim we take on gets broken into the same three questions. Does the contract allocate the risk of this event to the other party? Did that event actually cause critical delay to completion? And what time and money follow from it?
Claims that arrive as a single narrative usually collapse because they answer the first and third questions confidently and skip the second. A tribunal reading a claim can tell the difference immediately, and so can the party defending it.
Establishing entitlement under the contract
Entitlement is a contract question before it is an engineering one. On Ontario projects we commonly work across CCDC forms, owner-amended CCDC, agency-specific transit and water contracts, and bespoke alliance and progressive design-build agreements. Each allocates risk differently for differing site conditions, permits and approvals, utility relocations, owner-directed changes, and third-party interfaces.
The first step is a clause-level read of the relief provisions: which events give time, which give time and money, what the notice mechanics are, and whether relief is conditional on mitigation.
- Identify the specific clause relied on for each event, not a general fairness argument
- Confirm whether the clause grants time only, or time and compensable cost
- Check whether relief is expressly conditional on notice within a stated period
- Note any obligation to mitigate or to accelerate on instruction
Causation: the part that decides the claim
Causation is proved on the schedule, not in the narrative. That means an accepted baseline, statused updates through the period in question, and an analysis that shows the critical path moving because of the event rather than around the same time as it.
Where updates were maintained monthly, a windows analysis is usually the strongest route. Where the project was live and the event's effect was modelled at the time, a Time Impact Analysis carries real weight because it was not built with hindsight. Where neither exists, we say so and select a method the record can actually support.
Notice, and why it is not a formality
Late notice is the most common reason a technically sound claim gets discounted. Some contracts make notice a condition precedent, in which case the entitlement is lost outright. Others allow the tribunal to consider prejudice, which turns the argument into a fight about whether the owner could have mitigated had it known.
On live projects we set up a notice register mapped to the contract's own clauses and periods, so the obligation is discharged as events occur rather than reconstructed later.
What good looks like
A defensible extension of time submission reads in a single line: here is the event, here is the clause that allocates its risk, here is the notice that was served, here is the schedule before and after, here is the critical path movement, here is the resulting time, and here is the cost that follows from that time.
Anything the record cannot carry should be removed from the submission rather than argued. A shorter claim that is fully evidenced settles faster and for more than a longer one that invites attack.
Written by Elite Analytics Claims Practice. For advice on a specific project or claim, get in touch.
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