Delay claims: how owners lose them
Delay claims are decided by records, not by who is right in the meeting. The party with contemporaneous documentation almost always prevails.
What a claim needs to survive
- A baseline schedule accepted by both parties
- Monthly updates showing actual progress against that baseline
- Written notice of each delay event within the contract's notice period
- A critical-path analysis showing the event moved the completion date
- Records of costs actually incurred
Where owners fall behind
Owners often approve schedule updates without reading them, respond to delay notices verbally, and issue directives by phone. Each of those is a gap the other side's consultant will find.
Five habits that protect you
1. Require the schedule update as a condition of each pay application. 2. Respond to every notice in writing, within the contract period, even if only to reserve rights. 3. Keep your own photo record of site progress, dated. 4. Log every decision you make and the date you made it — owner-caused delay is real and defensible only if dated. 5. Never sign a change order that leaves schedule impact undetermined.
The cheapest insurance
A monthly, ten-minute discipline of reading the schedule update and writing down what changed. It is not glamorous, and it is the difference between a negotiation and a claim.