An extension of time starts with a notice, not a claim
Delay is a fact of construction. Turning delay into a defensible extension of time depends on the notice going out early and the record being there to prove the cause.
QScope Team · 25 June 2026 · 6 min read
An extension of time protects the contractor from damages for a delay that was not its fault. It does not add money by itself, but it defends the programme, and on an Irish job the difference between a granted extension and a rejected one usually comes down to two things: whether the notice went out in time, and whether the record proves the cause.
The notice comes first
Both the RIAI forms and the Public Works Contract require the contractor to notify a delay event within the time the contract sets, and to follow with particulars. The notice is not a formality to be caught up on later. It is the trigger that opens the assessment, and a late notice gives the assessor a reason to reduce or refuse the entitlement before the merits are even reached.
- Notify the event. Serve the notice within the contractual window, as soon as the delay is apparent.
- State the cause. Tie the delay to a cause the contract recognises as grounds for an extension.
- Show the impact. Demonstrate the effect on the completion date, not just that an event happened.
Cause and effect, on the programme
An extension is granted for the impact on the completion date, so the claim has to work on the programme, not on a general sense that the job ran late. The event has to be shown pushing the critical path, and the days claimed have to follow from that. A claim that asserts weeks of delay without demonstrating the effect on the completion date invites the assessor to grant far less.
The record carries it
Delay claims are won and lost on records. Site diaries, progress against the programme, correspondence fixing the date an event began and ended, all of it turns a bare assertion into a demonstrable case. The contractor who logged the event as it happened has a claim. The one reconstructing it months later has a story. On a Public Works Contract, where the assessment is formal, the record is the claim.
Time and money are separate
An extension defends the programme. It does not by itself pay for the cost of the delay. Where the delay also carries loss, that is a separate head to be valued and claimed on its own footing. Keeping the two apart keeps both clean, and stops a strong time claim being dragged down by a weak money one.
The discipline
Notify every delay event the moment it is apparent, tie it to a recognised cause, and prove the impact on the completion date from the programme. Keep the record as the job runs. The extension you protect with an early notice and a clean record is the one that holds.
QScope keeps the delay events, notices and programme impact in one place, so the extension of time claim is built from records rather than reconstructed from memory.