Notice: why the first written message matters in a change
Tuesday morning, the structural engineer phones to say the revised beam details will take another week. Your superintendent notes "waiting on steel details" in the daily report and moves the crews elsewhere. Six weeks later the owner rejects your claim for the resequencing cost, saying it was never told the delay would cost anything.
Your contract may set a time limit for telling the other party in writing that something has changed or is delaying the work, and may limit what you can recover for costs incurred before you do. Teams often hold back until the price is ready, and the window closes while they wait.
Standard public contracts show how much can turn on it. In US federal fixed-price construction contracts, an order from the contracting officer that is not a formal change order, written or oral, counts as a change only if the contractor gives written notice of its date, circumstances and source and says it regards the order as a change. Except for defective specifications, costs incurred more than 20 days before that notice are not adjusted. Fisheries and Oceans Canada's construction conditions require written notice of intention to claim within 10 working days of the day a delay by the department, such as late information, first occurs.
- List the notice clauses when you read the contract: each time limit, the form required and the person it must go to.
- Send notice the day the event happens, saying when cost and time will follow if they are not yet known.
- State the facts: what happened, when, who directed it or what caused it, the work affected and the reference.
- Say what you consider it to be — a change, a delay or a differing site condition — and that you expect an adjustment.
- Give notice of a differing site condition before you disturb it, and photograph it first; the US federal clause requires prompt written notice before the conditions are disturbed.
- Deliver it as the contract says, to the person it names, and keep proof of delivery.
Common mistakes
- Waiting for a price before writing anything.
- Treating daily reports or minutes as notice when the contract names another form or recipient.
- Writing an angry letter instead of a factual one.
- Telling the site contact and assuming the message travels.
Action list
Your notice routine
- List every notice clause, time limit and recipient
- Send notice the day the event happens
- Facts only: what, when, who, where, reference
- Name it a change or delay and ask for an adjustment
- Deliver it as the contract says; keep proof
- Diary the date the price is due
Check your understanding
The owner's representative says the paperwork can wait until the end of the job. Why send the notice anyway?
