Notice Requirements (Contract Claims)
Contract provisions specifying how and when a party must formally notify the other of a claim, delay, or changed condition, often with a strict deadline, commonly ten to twenty days from the triggering event. Failing to give timely notice can waive an otherwise valid claim entirely, regardless of its merits.
Why it matters
Notice requirements get enforced strictly precisely because they're easy to overlook in the middle of an actual jobsite problem, a contractor focused on solving a delay in the field can lose the right to be paid for it just by not also sending the required letter.
On a real project
A contractor discovers a differing site condition and immediately starts working around it in the field, but doesn't submit the written notice the contract requires within fifteen days. Even though the condition itself was real, the missed notice deadline waives the claim.
Who this matters most to
A Contracts Administrator tracks every contract's specific notice deadlines and makes sure the field team knows to flag triggering events immediately, since a missed deadline can void a claim no matter how strong the underlying facts are.
Where this goes wrong
A subcontractor experiences a legitimate owner-caused delay but doesn't submit written notice within the contract's strict notice deadline, focused instead on managing the delay in the field. By the time a claim is formally raised, the subcontractor has lost the right to claim it, even though the delay itself was clearly the owner's fault.