A civil contractor finishes a council drainage upgrade eleven weeks late. The delay was not their fault — a water authority took nine weeks longer than programmed to relocate a main, and nothing downstream could start until it moved. They claim an extension of time. The Superintendent grants it in full.

The contractor is relieved. They should not be, entirely. The extension protects them from about $77,000 in liquidated damages, which is a real result. But it does not pay for the eleven weeks of site office, supervisor, amenities, traffic management standing, insurance and plant that they carried while waiting — roughly $130,000 that has come straight out of margin.

Nobody refused that money. It was never claimed.

Time and money are two separate claims

This is the foundational point, and it is the one most commonly missed by contractors who administer their own contracts.

An extension of time gives you relief from liquidated damages. It does not, by itself, entitle you to a cent of cost recovery. To be paid for the delay you have to prove something further — that the delay affected the critical path, that the cause was one the contract makes compensable, and that the costs were actually incurred.^[1]

Under AS 4000 the two entitlements have different names and different triggers. The extension flows from a qualifying cause of delay. The money flows from a compensable cause, and is claimed as delay damages under clause 34.9.^[2] Every qualifying cause is not a compensable cause. The gap between those two lists is where civil SMEs lose the most money on the most projects.

Delay event	Extension of time?	Delay costs?
Superintendent directs a variation that adds four weeks	Yes	Yes — an act of the Superintendent is a compensable cause
Principal hands over the site nine weeks late	Yes	Yes — principal’s act or omission
Late issue of drawings or a late RFI response	Yes	Yes — Superintendent’s omission
Another contractor engaged by the principal blocks your access	Yes	Yes — the definition extends to other contractors of the principal
Inclement weather beyond your programmed allowance	Usually yes	Usually no — a qualifying cause but not a compensable one
Industrial action across the industry	Usually yes	Usually no
A latent condition	Yes	Generally yes — commonly routed through the variation mechanism
Your subcontractor fails to mobilise	No	No — your risk
Your own rework after a failed ITP	No	No

Weather is the row that surprises people. It is the most frequently claimed delay event in civil construction and the least frequently compensable one. You get the time — which is worth having, because it removes the liquidated damages exposure — but the standing costs during a wet fortnight sit with you unless the contract says otherwise. Price that into your tender rather than discovering it in August.

Only critical delay counts

The second foundational point: a delay to an activity is not a delay to the project.

NSW Government procurement guidance puts the test plainly — to warrant payment of prolongation costs, a delay must affect the critical path and delay completion of the whole of the works or a milestone.^[1] If an activity has four weeks of float and it slips three weeks, the project is not late, and there is nothing to extend.

This has a consequence that catches out contractors who work from a bar chart drawn in a spreadsheet: if you cannot show a critical path, you cannot show critical delay. A programme without logic links, without durations that respond to change, and without a defined critical path is not a document you can build a claim on. It is a picture of an intention.

The programme you submitted with your tender therefore does double duty. It is a scoring document at tender stage — and our guide to writing a construction program for tenders covers that use — and it is the evidentiary baseline for every time claim you will ever make on the job. Contractors who treat it as a submission requirement and never update it lose the second use entirely.

• Get the programme accepted. An accepted programme is the agreed baseline. An unaccepted one invites an argument about what the baseline even was.
• Keep it updated at a fixed interval — monthly at minimum, with actual start and finish dates recorded against each activity as they happen.
• Keep every revision. Superseded programmes are evidence, not clutter. The comparison between revisions is often the clearest demonstration of impact you have.
• Do not quietly re-sequence to absorb a delay without recording that you have done so. Absorbing an employer delay into your own float, silently, gives away the entitlement and makes the eventual claim look invented.

Qualifying cause vs compensable cause

Under AS 4000, a qualifying cause of delay is defined to include any act, default or omission of the Superintendent, the Principal, or their consultants, agents or other contractors, together with — before the date of practical completion — inclement weather and industrial conditions, subject to the exclusions listed in the Annexure.^[2] A qualifying cause is what gets you the extension.

A compensable cause is the narrower category that also gets you money: acts, defaults or omissions of the Superintendent, the Principal or its consultants, agents or other contractors, plus any additional causes the parties have listed in the Annexure.^[2]

Three practical implications.

Read the Annexure before you sign. The Annexure is where the qualifying causes get carved back and the compensable causes get defined. Amended government and council contracts routinely delete weather from qualifying causes, cap delay costs at a daily rate, or remove the compensable category altogether. Two contracts on the same standard form can allocate delay risk in completely opposite directions, and the difference is entirely in the Annexure and the special conditions.

Characterise the cause correctly, and early. “The job was delayed by wet weather” is a qualifying-cause framing that gives away money if the real position is that the site was wet because the principal’s drainage connection was nine weeks late and the site could not be dewatered. The characterisation you use in your first notice tends to stick.

Where a delay has more than one cause, say so at the time. Delays in civil work rarely have single causes. Recording all of them contemporaneously preserves the argument; picking one and mentioning the others eight months later looks like reconstruction.

The notice regime and the 28-day clock

AS 4000 runs a two-stage notice regime, and the stages do different jobs.

Stage one — the delay notice, clause 34.2. Given promptly to both the Principal and the Superintendent, identifying the cause of the delay and your estimate of its extent. No specific timeframe is prescribed for this preliminary notice; the obligation is promptness.^[3] Its function is to put the other side on notice while something can still be done about it.

Stage two — the EOT claim, clause 34.3. Made within 28 calendar days of becoming aware of the causation of the delay, and required to state the facts of causation and the delay, including its extent.^[3]

Two features of that 28-day window cause more forfeited claims than anything else in construction contracting.

The clock starts at awareness of causation, not at the end of the delay. If a water authority tells you in March that a relocation will not happen until June, you became aware of the causation in March. Waiting until June — when you know the exact extent — is three months too late. Claim on the information you have, and update as further delay accrues; clause 34.3 contemplates prompt further claims for continuing delay.^[3]

Twenty-eight days is the unamended position. Council and agency contracts frequently shorten it. Fourteen days is common; seven and ten appear. Never work from memory of what the standard form says — work from the executed contract.

Form	Delay notice	EOT claim	Assessment
AS 4000-1997	Clause 34.2 — promptly, to Principal and Superintendent	Clause 34.3 — within 28 calendar days of awareness of causation	Clause 34.5 — Superintendent’s written direction within 28 days
AS 2124-1992	Clause 35.5 — promptly after becoming aware of anything likely to cause delay	Clause 35.5 — within 28 calendar days of becoming aware of the cause	Superintendent’s assessment under clause 35.5
Amended council / agency forms	Often expressly time-limited	Frequently 7, 10 or 14 days — and frequently a condition precedent	Deemed-assessment provision often deleted

The comparison between the two standard forms, and what principals typically change when they amend them, is set out in our guide to AS 4000 vs AS 2124.

Time bars and conditions precedent

A time bar is a contractual deadline for a notice or claim, and where the contract makes compliance a condition precedent to entitlement, missing it can extinguish an otherwise valid claim completely.^[4]

It is worth being blunt about how harsh this is. A contractor can be delayed twelve weeks by an undisputed principal breach, incur $200,000 of genuine cost, and recover nothing because a notice went in on day 16 of a 14-day window. The merits do not save you. This is the single most punitive mechanism a civil SME faces, and it is almost entirely administrative — which means it is almost entirely preventable.

The words to look for when you read the contract are the ones that convert a procedural step into a precondition: “the Contractor shall not be entitled to an extension of time unless…”, “…is a condition precedent to any entitlement”, “failing which the claim shall be barred”. If those words appear anywhere near clause 34, your notice discipline is a commercial control, not paperwork.

• Extract every notice period from the contract at kick-off and put them on one page that lives in the site office. Not the whole contract — one page.
• Set your internal trigger at half the contractual period. If the contract says 14 days, your rule is 7. The buffer absorbs the week where the person who knew was on leave.
• Give notice on suspicion, not on certainty. A notice that turns out to be unnecessary costs nothing. A notice not given costs the claim.
• Brief supervisors, not just the office. The person who first knows about a delay is almost always on site. If they do not know that a phone call to the office starts a clock, the clock does not start.

The Superintendent’s clock — and the deemed assessment

The obligation is not one-way, and the reciprocal provision is unusually favourable to contractors who track it.

Under AS 4000 clause 34.5, the Superintendent must give a written direction with the assessment of the EOT within 28 calendar days of receiving the claim. If the Superintendent fails to do so, there is a deemed assessment and direction for the full extension of time claimed.^[3]

Read that again, because it is worth money. An unanswered EOT claim, on an unamended AS 4000, becomes an approved EOT claim in full. Contractors who diarise the Superintendent’s response date and follow up on day 29 with a short letter recording the deemed position are in a materially stronger place than those who simply wait and wonder.

Two cautions. First, this provision is a common deletion target in amended contracts — check whether yours survives. Second, the deemed direction relates to the extension of time, not to delay costs; the money still has to be claimed and substantiated separately under clause 34.9.

What an EOT claim has to contain

Clause 34.3 requires the facts of causation and the delay including its extent.^[3] That is the contractual minimum. The practical minimum — what an assessor needs in order to say yes — is more.

1. The clause you claim under, and the category of cause you say applies (qualifying, compensable, or both).
2. The facts of causation — what happened, when, who was involved, told in chronological order with dates. Not adjectives. Dates.
3. The extent of the delay, expressed in calendar days against a stated date for practical completion.
4. An impacted programme showing the critical path before the event and after it. This is what actually demonstrates the extent, and an EOT claim without one is asking the assessor to take the number on faith.^[3]
5. Supporting records — site diaries, correspondence, photographs, minutes, the RFI register, the delivery dockets that show plant standing.
6. Mitigation — what you did to reduce the delay and its cost. This is not optional garnish; see §14.
7. The delay-cost position — either a quantified delay damages claim, or an express reservation. Never silence.

Under clause 34.9, a delay damages claim must specify the general basis of the claim and the quantum, with supporting documentation.^[2] “General basis” means the causal story; “quantum” means the arithmetic. Both, every time.

Delay analysis an assessor will actually accept

Formal delay analysis has a specialist literature and a set of competing methodologies. On a $400,000 council job you do not need any of them. What you need is a demonstration that survives an intelligent reader.

The test that runs through Australian practice is the “but for” test: would the work have been completed earlier but for the event that was not within your control?^[1] Everything you produce should answer that question directly.

Approach	What it involves	When it fits
Impacted as-planned	Insert the delay event into the accepted baseline programme and show the effect on the completion date	Simple, single-event delays on small to mid-size civil jobs. Cheap and usually sufficient.
As-planned vs as-built	Compare the baseline against what actually happened, and account for the differences	Where several events overlap and the record is good. The most persuasive approach available to an SME.
Time impact analysis	Model each event at the point it occurred, against the programme current at that time	Larger contracts with regularly updated programmes. Requires disciplined programme updates throughout.
Windows analysis	Divide the project into periods and analyse critical delay within each	Long, complex, multi-event disputes. Usually expert territory and rarely proportionate below seven figures.

For most civil SME claims, impacted as-planned prepared contemporaneously beats a sophisticated retrospective analysis prepared eighteen months later. Proportionality matters: an assessor confronted with a forensic report on a $60,000 claim tends to conclude the claim is being dressed up.

The common failure is not choosing the wrong method. It is having no updated programme to analyse — no recorded actual dates, no revisions, no logic. Where that is the case, no methodology can rescue the claim, because there is nothing to compare.

Concurrent delay: where the money disappears

Concurrent delay occurs where two or more delay events overlap — one the principal’s responsibility, one yours.^[5] It is the most consequential concept in this guide and it operates in a way that is easy to state and painful to experience.

The usual position: concurrency preserves your extension of time and destroys your delay costs. Construction contracts typically provide that where delay is concurrent the contractor is entitled to an extension of time but not to associated costs or an adjustment to the contract price, on the basis that a contractor should not be compensated for prolongation it contributed to.^[5] NSW Government guidance states the position directly: a contractor is not entitled to delay costs when there is a concurrent delay within the contractor’s control.^[1]

The commercial consequence is severe, and it is why concurrency is the first thing a well-advised principal looks for when a delay-cost claim lands. If they can identify any delay of their own within the same window that was your responsibility, the cost claim is reduced or eliminated — even if their own delay was the larger one.

Three things follow for how you run a job.

• Your own delays are expensive beyond their direct cost. A subcontractor who is a fortnight late during a period when the principal is also delaying you does not just cost you a fortnight — it can cost you the entire delay-cost claim for that window. This is a real reason to hold your own programme even when the job is already stalled.
• Sequencing and dates decide concurrency. Whether two delays truly overlap, and by how much, is a question of precise dates on the critical path. Vague records produce vague overlap, and vague overlap is resolved against the party carrying the burden of proof — which is you.
• Do not concede concurrency casually. Contractors frequently describe their own position more generously than the facts require: “we were behind anyway” in an email becomes the principal’s complete defence. Describe what happened, accurately, and let the analysis determine whether periods truly overlapped.

Australian courts have tempered the prevention principle where delays are contributed to concurrently by both parties, so the argument that a principal’s delay prevents them from levying liquidated damages does not run as freely as contractors sometimes hope.^[5] Concurrency is a genuine legal complexity, and on a claim of real size it is worth advice rather than optimism.

Prolongation costs — what is recoverable

Where you clear the entitlement hurdles, the question becomes what you can actually claim. NSW Government construction procurement guidance sets out the categories agencies expect to see, and it is a good proxy for what a well-run principal anywhere in Australia will accept.^[1]

Category	What it covers	How to substantiate
On-site overheads	Supervisory staff, general labour, plant, site services, amenities, site office, temporary works maintained through the delay period	Timesheets, wage records, plant hire invoices, internal plant rates applied consistently, site diary showing what was actually on site
Off-site overheads	Executive and head-office costs attributable to the extended period — commonly assessed around 3% of direct costs	A stated, defensible basis. Percentage methods are accepted in practice; formula-based approaches are not (see below)
Subcontractor costs	Delay costs passed up by subcontractors	Subject to verification and review of the subcontract. Expect the subcontract itself to be requested
Financing costs	Overdraft interest on documented out-of-pocket costs	Bank statements and facility documents showing the actual interest incurred
Insurance and security	Cost of maintaining insurances and security instruments over the extended period	Policy documents, premium invoices, bank guarantee fee statements

The consistent thread is that costs must have been actually incurred, and that the contractor must show every effort was taken to minimise them.^[1] Prolongation is a reimbursement claim, not a damages-at-large claim. A daily rate calculated at tender stage and applied mechanically to the delay period will be challenged unless it corresponds to what you actually spent.

One practical note on insurance and security. Extended contract periods extend your bank guarantee and insurance obligations, and those costs are recoverable but routinely forgotten. If a job runs eleven weeks over, the guarantee fee and the extended policy period are real money — claim them.

What is not recoverable

Equally important, and equally clear in the guidance.^[1]

• Claim preparation costs. The time you spend assembling the claim is not part of the claim. Contractors who add a “claim administration” line invite scrutiny of everything else.
• Loss of profit on the delay itself. Prolongation compensates cost, not the margin you would have earned had the delay not happened.
• Hudson and Eichleay formula calculations. These formula-based methods for off-site overhead recovery are not accepted. Use a stated percentage basis with actual cost support instead.

The formula point is worth flagging because contractors sometimes encounter Hudson or Eichleay in overseas material and assume they are standard. Producing one in an Australian claim tends to signal that the claim was assembled from a template rather than from records.

Disruption is a different claim again

There is a third category beyond time and prolongation, and it is the one civil contractors feel most and claim least.

Disruption is loss of productivity caused by the principal’s actions, which may not delay completion at all. The work simply takes longer per unit produced.^[1] A crew that could lay 180 metres of pipe a day is now laying 110 because they are working around a service the principal has not relocated, in a corridor half the width, with two extra set-ups a day. The job may still finish on time. The cost is still real.

Disruption claims are harder than prolongation claims because they require a productivity comparison — planned output against actual output, with the difference attributed to a specific cause. The evidence that makes them work is the evidence nobody keeps: daily production records by activity, showing quantity achieved against resources deployed.

If you record nothing else beyond the site diary, record daily production. It costs a supervisor two minutes and it is the only thing that turns “we were slowed down” into a claim. The measured-mile approach — comparing an undisrupted period of the same activity on the same job against the disrupted period — is the most persuasive method available, and it only exists if you measured both.

Why global claims fail

A global claim aggregates many causes into one lump sum and asks for the difference between what the job cost and what it was priced at. They are attractive at the end of a difficult project, when the records are thin and the losses are obvious. They also fail.

NSW guidance is explicit that valuing the delay component of each claim when it is first submitted significantly reduces the opportunity to exaggerate quantum, and that aggregate end-of-contract claims obscure causation.^[1] The problem is structural: a global claim requires the assessor to accept that every element of the overrun was the principal’s responsibility, so a single contractor-caused item anywhere in the period undermines the whole.

The discipline that avoids it is unglamorous and entirely within your control: claim each event as it happens, valued at the time. Six claims of $22,000 submitted across the job, each with its own causation and its own records, will recover far more than one claim of $132,000 submitted in the final month.

Mitigation, and why it is part of your claim

Contractors treat mitigation as a defensive obligation. It is better understood as part of the claim itself. Agencies expect the contractor to show that every effort has been taken to minimise the costs claimed.^[1] An unmitigated claim is not merely reduced — it looks opportunistic, and that colours the assessment of everything else.

What mitigation looks like in civil work, and what to record:

• Re-sequencing to keep crews productive — record what you moved, when, and why, so the resequencing does not later read as evidence there was no delay.
• Demobilising plant you could not use — off-hiring an excavator during a nine-week wait is both good practice and proof of mitigation. Standing plant on site for nine weeks and claiming it invites the question of why you did not send it away.
• Redeploying labour to other jobs or other work fronts.
• Chasing the cause — the emails to the water authority, the requests for the drawing, the follow-ups on the RFI. These do double duty as causation evidence and mitigation evidence.
• Offering solutions — proposing an alternative sequence or a temporary works arrangement that would reduce the delay, even if the principal declines it. A declined mitigation proposal is excellent evidence.

Acceleration, constructive and otherwise

Two scenarios sit at the end of a refused EOT, and the difference between them is worth real money.

Directed acceleration. The principal accepts you are entitled to more time but wants the original date, and directs you to accelerate. This is generally a compensable direction — treat it like a variation, price it before you commit resources, and get the direction in writing exactly as described in our guide to variations in civil construction contracts.

Constructive acceleration. You are entitled to an extension, the Superintendent refuses or does not respond, and you accelerate anyway to avoid liquidated damages. The claim that the refusal effectively directed the acceleration is available in principle but is difficult to run, and it depends heavily on having claimed the extension properly in the first place and having recorded the acceleration decision and its cost at the time.

The practical guidance is the same in both cases: do not accelerate silently. If you are putting on a second crew or working weekends because a time claim has not been granted, say so in writing, at the time, and record the additional cost separately. Contractors who absorb acceleration quietly and raise it at the end have no claim and no evidence.

The other side: liquidated damages

The reason the EOT matters at all is what sits behind it. Liquidated damages are a pre-agreed daily or weekly amount payable if you complete late, and they are deducted whether or not the principal proves actual loss.

How they are triggered differs between the standard forms — under AS 2124 they operate automatically, whereas AS 4000 requires certification — and the comparison is set out in our contract forms guide. What matters commercially is simpler:

• Know the rate before you sign. $1,000 a day on a nine-month job is a $270,000 exposure if things go badly. Price the risk or negotiate the rate.
• Check whether there is a cap. Uncapped liquidated damages on a small contract are a genuine solvency risk for an SME.
• Every approved EOT day is a day of liquidated damages you do not pay. That is the arithmetic that justifies the notice discipline in this guide even when no delay costs are recoverable.

A worked sequence

The drainage job from the opening, run properly.

When	What happens	What you do
Day 0	Water authority advises the main relocation will not proceed as programmed	Delay notice under clause 34.2 the same day, to Principal and Superintendent — cause, and your estimate of extent. Diary entry. Photograph the work front.
Day 1–3	You assess the programme impact	Impact the accepted baseline. Confirm the relocation is on the critical path. Identify what you can bring forward.
Day 4	Mitigation begins	Off-hire the excavator not needed. Redeploy two crew. Email the authority requesting a revised date. Record all three.
Day 7	EOT claim lodged — well inside 28 days, and inside a 14-day amended window	Clause, causation chronology, extent in calendar days, impacted programme, records, mitigation, and a quantified delay damages claim under clause 34.9.
Day 8–35	Delay continues	Weekly diary and production records maintained. Further claims lodged promptly as additional delay accrues. Costs captured against a dedicated job code.
Day 35	Superintendent has not responded	Day 29 letter recording the deemed assessment position under clause 34.5, politely and without threat.
Next claim cycle	Delay damages included in the progress claim	Included whether or not assessed, preserving the security of payment route for that cycle.
Completion	Eleven weeks late, fully covered by approved extensions	No liquidated damages. Delay costs claimed event by event, substantiated from contemporaneous records — not aggregated into a global claim at the end.

Nothing in that sequence is sophisticated. It is a notice on the day, a programme kept current, records kept daily, and claims made event by event. The contractor in the opening scenario did the same work and carried the same delay; the difference was $130,000 of administration.

The short version

• An EOT protects you from liquidated damages. Delay costs are a second claim on a different test — make it, or expressly reserve it, every time.
• Only critical-path delay counts, which means an updated programme with logic is not optional.
• Find your contract’s notice periods and whether notice is a condition precedent. Set your internal trigger at half the contractual period.
• Diarise the Superintendent’s 28-day assessment date — the deemed assessment is worth money.
• Concurrency preserves time and destroys money. Hold your own programme even when the job has already stalled.
• Claim event by event, valued at the time. Global claims fail.
• Record mitigation as you do it. Record daily production, or disruption is unclaimable.

The records that make all of this possible — site diaries, notices, photographs, the instruction register and the production sheet — are covered in our guide to contract administration for civil SMEs. If a contract has landed and you want the notice regime extracted and a claim system set up before the first delay arrives, that is what our post-award and mobilisation support does.

References

This guide is general information for Australian civil construction businesses and is not legal advice. Delay and disruption entitlements depend heavily on the executed contract, including special conditions and the Annexure, and concurrent delay in particular is a complex area. All examples are illustrative. Obtain advice on any claim of significance.

1. NSW Government (buy.nsw) — Construction procurement guide: handling prolongation and disruption claims. Prolongation claims defined as claims for reimbursement of time-related costs caused by delays the principal caused; disruption claims defined as claims for loss of productivity arising from the principal’s actions which may not result in delay to completion. Contractor’s burden to demonstrate that a delay occurred affecting the critical path or a completion milestone; that the cause was a principal breach or an event the contract specifically covers; that all claimed costs were actually incurred; and that every effort has been taken by the contractor to minimise those costs. Requirement that, to warrant payment of prolongation costs, a delay must affect the critical path and delay completion of the whole of the works or a milestone. The “but for” test — whether the work would have been completed earlier but for an event not within the contractor’s control. Statement that a contractor is not entitled to delay costs where there is a concurrent delay within the contractor’s control. Recoverable categories including on-site overheads (supervisory staff, general labour, plant, services and amenities), off-site overheads (executive and office costs, typically around 3% of direct costs), subcontractor costs subject to verification and subcontract review, financing costs by way of overdraft interest on documented out-of-pocket costs, and the cost of maintaining insurance and security. Non-recoverable items including claim preparation costs, loss of profit on the delay itself, and costs calculated under the Hudson or Eichleay formulas. Substantiation expectations including cost records, wage sheets, invoices, hire documentation, subcontract agreements and proof of mitigation. Position that valuing the delay component of each claim when first submitted significantly reduces the opportunity to exaggerate quantum, and that aggregate end-of-contract claims obscure causation. Referenced alongside the NSW Managing extension of time claims guide. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
2. Turtons Lawyers — What is a qualifying cause of delay under AS 4000? (definition of a qualifying cause of delay under AS 4000 including any act, default or omission of the Superintendent, the Principal or their consultants, agents or other contractors, together with inclement weather and industrial conditions occurring before the date of practical completion, subject to the exclusions listed at Item 23 of the Annexure and excluding breaches by the contractor; definition of a compensable cause by reference to clause 1.1 and Item 26 of the Annexure as determining entitlement to delay damages; clause 34.9 providing for delay damages for each day of a compensable cause subject to an approved extension of time, with the claim required to specify the general basis of the claim and the quantum with supporting documentation). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
3. Turtons Lawyers — How to claim an EOT under AS 4000 (clause 34.2 notice of delay to be submitted promptly to both the Principal and the Superintendent, identifying the cause of delay and the contractor’s estimate of its duration, with no specific timeframe mandated for the preliminary notice; clause 34.3 formal extension of time claim required within 28 calendar days of becoming aware of the causation, stating the facts of causation and the delay including its extent, with an impacted programme demonstrating critical path effects typically essential and documentation of prevention and mitigation efforts advisable; clause 34.3 requiring updated claims to be submitted promptly for additional qualifying delays; clause 34.5 requiring the Superintendent to give a written direction with its assessment within 28 calendar days of receiving the claim, with failure to do so resulting in a deemed assessment and direction for the full extension of time claimed). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
4. Blaze Business & Legal — Extensions of Time & EOTs in Construction Contracts and Understanding Extension of Time (EOT) Claims in Australia; Procore — Extension of Time Claims: Best Practices for Australian Commercial Builders (time bars as strict contractual deadlines for extension of time notices and claims, with the consequence that missing a deadline can forfeit entitlement even where the delay itself is valid). ↩
5. Norton Rose Fulbright — Time is ticking: Managing delay and extensions of time in construction contracts (Australia); Chamberlains — Delay Costs, Delay Damages & The Prevention Principle; Lavan — Construction Contracts: proving delay claims. Concurrent delay described as arising where delay is caused by two events at the same time, one being an event for which the employer is responsible under the construction contract and the other an event for which the contractor is responsible; the typical contractual position that in the event of concurrent delay the contractor is entitled to an extension of time but not to associated costs or an adjustment to the contract price, on the basis that the contractor should not be compensated for prolongation to which it contributed; the requirement for precise sequencing and causation analysis; and the position that Australian courts have tempered the prevention principle where delays are contributed to concurrently by both parties. ↩ ↩ ↩