Planning advice for contractors

In an NEC time dispute the lawyers argue entitlement, but much of what decides it sits in the programme record: which programme the contract recognised at each dividing date, what happened against it and what each event did to planned Completion. This guide sets out what counts as programme evidence under NEC4, what a planner adds to a claim, what changes in an adjudication timetable and where the evidence tends to fail.

Most of what changed between the 1999 and 2017 FIDIC conditions is a clause number. The problem is the templates that were never updated: on a 2017 contract, a notice citing Sub-Clause 8.4 for an extension of time is citing the advance warning provision instead.

Each NEC4 compensation event is assessed from one date. Clause 63.1 sets it, cost on one side of it is actual and on the other forecast, and clause 63.5 measures delay against the Accepted Programme current on it. This guide explains how the dividing date is set, what it decides, the dates it is confused with and how NEC3 differed, with a worked example in which two events with dividing dates nine days apart are assessed against different programmes.

FIDIC does not ask anyone to approve the programme. It asks the Engineer to review it, and gives a period in which to object. Let the period pass and a Notice of No-objection is deemed given, so the defined Programme exists whether anybody meant to create one or not. This guide covers what Sub-Clause 8.3 of the 2017 books requires, how the review works, and when and how the programme is revised.

Delay damages are the part of the JCT to NEC transition contractors think they already understand. The rate is in the contract data and it starts when you are late. What changes is not the arithmetic but the procedure: JCT surrounds the deduction with three notices a contractor can attack, and NEC removes all of them. Plus the conclusion most find backwards, that taking option X7 out of the contract raises exposure rather than lowering it.

Every contractor arriving on NEC has heard that NEC is strict about notices and JCT is relaxed. It is half wrong, in the half that costs money. JCT keeps two notices because it keeps two lists: the extension of time notice carries no sanction, while the loss and expense notice has been held by a court to be a condition of being paid at all. NEC runs one notification and one deadline, and it bars time and money together.

The JCT Standard Building Contract asks for a master programme under clause 2.9, leaves critical paths optional in the Contract Particulars, and only requires an update when you apply for an extension of time. The Design and Build form does not expressly require a programme at all. None of that changes what a retrospective claim has to prove. This is the gap between the contractual floor and the evidential bar, and what to keep so the claim stands up.

Vocabulary transfers faster than machinery. A JCT team learns to say compensation event within a fortnight, then prices its first one like an extension of time application with the money to follow. There is no money to follow. The mechanism comparison in full: what triggers each, who assesses it, against what standard, and why the notice reflex has now flipped on both contracts.

JCT vs NEC vs FIDIC, from the planner's side. The three contracts use the same words, programme, notice and extension of time, and give each a different job. This guide sets them side by side, follows one late-access event through each week by week, reads three court cases with the programme at their centre, and sets out how I run the programme when a job moves between them.

A FIDIC extension of time is decided on the programme and the records. This guide takes the 2017 Red and Yellow Books from the planner's side: the Sub-Clause 8.5 grounds and what each carries, the Notice of Claim and fully detailed Claim under 20.2 with the Engineer's 14 days and the late-submission review, the 42 plus 42 days under 3.7, concurrent delay, the programme evidence that wins the days, and what an EU grant adds on funded work.

Most contractors come to NEC with JCT instincts: claim extensions retrospectively, reconstruct delay at the end, argue from the completion date. NEC works the opposite way. Time entitlement is built prospectively, one compensation event at a time, against planned completion at the dividing date. Get that wrong, and you are fighting uphill for every week. Get it right, and the contract does the heavy lifting. This is the complete contractor guide to NEC delay analysis and exte

Clause 15 only works when early warnings trigger decisions and programme movement. Here’s a quantified register method and weekly rhythm you can run on real jobs.

The NEC4 compensation event time bar is the most asymmetric provision in the entire contract. Almost every other NEC provision creates a spectrum of outcomes through judgement, extension mechanisms, or proportionate consequences. The eight-week time bar creates a cliff: notifications inside the period preserve entitlement, notifications outside it forfeit it entirely. The contractor who understands this asymmetry organises their administration around it.

Every subcontractor delay on an NEC4 project is two delays at once. The subcontract event runs on its own clock with its own notification requirements, evidence, and commercial outcomes. The head contract event runs on a parallel clock with its own clause 61.3 window, its own assessment, and its own clause 64 vulnerability. Most contractors run one of these processes diligently and the other partially or not at all.

Give the same compensation event to two competent planners. Same accepted programme, same dividing date, same facts. One comes back with three weeks of delay to planned Completion. The other comes back with nine days. Both can defend their model. Neither has made an arithmetic error. The difference is five judgement calls that sit inside every NEC4 delay assessment, that the contract deliberately leaves open, and that most contractors make silently.