Construction Contract Notice Sent to the Wrong Recipient? 8 Checks Before the Deadline
A contractor identifies a delay event and prepares the required notice. The contract allows five Business Days. The team sends the notice on day four and records it as complete. There is one problem: it went to the project manager’s usual email address, while the contract says contractual notices must be sent to the Principal’s […]
Verbal Instructions in Construction Contracts: 8 Checks Before You Proceed
A site supervisor is walking the workfront with a client representative when the instruction comes: “Move that service run two metres and keep going. We’ll sort the paperwork later.” The team wants to maintain progress, so the work proceeds. A week later, commercial identifies additional labour, materials and rework. The client says no formal variation […]
Unanswered RFI Construction Delay: What Project Teams Should Check Before It Reaches the Critical Path
A critical RFI is submitted because the drawings do not provide enough information to complete a planned activity. Five days pass with no answer. By day ten, the work is approaching the critical path. The project manager keeps chasing the designer. Commercial sees delay accumulating. Contract administration asks a different question: what did the contract […]
Late Site Handover in a Construction Contract: What Project Teams Should Check
The site was due to be handed over on Monday. By Friday, the contractor still cannot start the planned workfront and five working days of the original programme have been affected. The project manager believes the team can recover the time later. Commercial sees a possible extension-of-time issue. Contract administration asks a different question: what […]
Contract Variation Disputes in Construction
Contract variation disputes in construction usually do not start as disputes. They often start as a site instruction, a design change, a clarification, an access issue, a scope disagreement, a late approval, an urgent instruction, or a commercial misunderstanding. At the beginning, the issue may look manageable. The project team may think the change is […]
Notice of Delay in Construction Contracts
A notice of delay in a construction contract is a formal communication that alerts the contractually required recipient that an event has occurred, or is occurring, which may delay the works. A notice of delay in construction contracts is often treated as routine administration. In practice, it is much more important than that. A construction […]
Variation Claim Documentation Checklist for Construction Projects
Variation claims are one of the most common sources of commercial pressure on construction and infrastructure projects. A variation may start with a simple instruction, drawing change, site direction, access constraint, revised specification, or late client requirement. However, if the change is not documented properly, the project team may later struggle to prove what changed, […]
Contract Risk Analysis in Construction: A Practical Framework for Project Teams
Construction contracts are not just legal documents. They are operating manuals for time, cost, payment, risk allocation, notice obligations, approvals, variations, delays, extensions of time, defects, indemnities, limitations of liability and dispute pathways. For project teams, the real challenge is not only understanding what the contract says. The challenge is knowing which clauses matter when […]
Contract Review Checklist for Construction Projects: A Practical Guide for Commercial and Project Teams
A practical construction contract review checklist helps construction and infrastructure teams spot hidden risks, unclear scope, problematic payment terms, strict notice requirements, and unbalanced risk allocation before signing. It also helps teams turn the agreed contract into live controls during delivery. In construction, contracts are not just legal documents. They operate as commercial roadmaps for […]
Claims and Variations Management in Construction: How Contract Risk Builds
A variation claim in construction is a formal request for an adjustment to the contract price, time or another contractual position because the work or its conditions have changed. Whether the request succeeds depends on the contract, the facts, the authority behind the instruction, compliance with notice requirements and the quality of the supporting records. […]