Notice Provisions: How Entitlement Is Lost Before It Is Argued

A delaying event occurs. The site team manages around it because that is what site teams do. Nobody serves notice within the contractual window. Eighteen months later, the cumulative impact is material, and the claim is met with a time-bar argument that never reaches the technical analysis.

This is the single most common way we see legitimate entitlement evaporate. It is also entirely preventable.

Contracts are written to be interpreted, not executed. We convert clauses into processes and flow charts the project team can follow, and convert the contract into a database with attributes on each clause so obligations can be retrieved by subject or issue.

The practical result: when an event occurs, the team can answer within minutes what notice is required, to whom, in what form, and by when.

We prefer to be engaged during execution. We agree the claims management process with the contracting parties, trace the schedule to identify critical delays and flag them to the project teams, test ongoing impacts with Time Impact Analysis, and coordinate mitigation measures the contract mandates.

Events are registered and tracked chronologically until closure, with impact assessed as it develops rather than inferred afterwards.

Where notice was imperfect, entitlement is not automatically gone. Waiver, course of dealing, knowledge of the certifier and prejudice all matter, and the analysis becomes fact-specific.

We work alongside counsel to establish what the record genuinely supports, and we tell clients when a position is weak. That candour is the reason our reports carry weight.