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NEC Questions Answered: Real Situations on Site

These NEC contract questions come from situations people actually face on a live job: drawings are late, the Project Manager hasn't replied, or a deadline may already have passed. Each page starts with the direct answer, then gives the steps to take and any clock that's running.

The answers default to the NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC) and say where NEC3 differs. Where a period changes with the form, such as under the NEC4 subcontract, they say that too. For the wider picture, start with our guide to NEC contracts. For the detail behind an answer, follow its links through to the clause guides, such as those on compensation events and early warnings.

Check the clock first

If your problem involves a compensation event, a missed date can matter more than the merits. These are the standard periods. Z clauses often change them, and some contracts remove a step completely.

StepNEC4 ECCNEC3 ECCNEC4 subcontract
Contractor notifies an event it has become aware of (61.3)8 weeks8 weeks7 weeks
Reply to that notification (61.4)1 week1 week2 weeks
Quotation after it's instructed (62.3)3 weeks3 weeks2 weeks
Reply to a quotation (62.3)2 weeks2 weeks4 weeks
Further period after a failure notice, before treated acceptance (61.4, 62.6)2 weeks2 weeks3 weeks

Other limits are listed in NEC time bars, and dispute deadlines are in time limits for disputes.

How to use these answers

  • Find the deciding fact. Many answers begin with "it depends", and they say on what: who owned the design, what the Accepted Programme showed, or which main Option applies.
  • Act on the steps, then read the guide. If a period is running, do the first step today.
  • Read your own contract. These pages describe the standard forms. Amendments can change a period or remove a right altogether.
  • Know when to take advice. We set out the contract position and what tends to help in practice. A specific dispute with real money at stake needs a legal adviser who has seen your documents.

All the questions, by topic

There are 114 questions below, in 18 groups. The sections run roughly in the order problems tend to arrive on a job, from design information and instructions to final payment and disputes. Every question appears once, under the topic it's closest to, so a question on a subcontractor's late notice is with the subcontract pages even though it's also a time bar problem.

Drawings, design and information

Most of these turn on who the Scope makes responsible for the design and what date the Accepted Programme shows, because the same late drawing can be a compensation event or the Contractor's own risk.

Instructions and authority

Only the Project Manager can change the Scope or a Key Date, and an instruction has to be in a form that can be recorded, so these pages cover spoken directions, Client requests and instructions that arrive without a compensation event.

Notifying events and time bars

The eight weeks in clause 61.3 of the NEC4 ECC is a limit that can end an otherwise good event, so start here if you think a date may already have passed.

When the Project Manager replies, or does not

Silence has its own route: the Contractor notifies the failure, and the event or quotation can then be treated as accepted, while a refusal or low figure goes down the dispute route instead.

Pricing compensation events

A quotation is a forecast of the event's effect on Defined Cost plus the Fee, not a remeasure, which explains why overruns and savings normally stay where they fall once it is accepted.

Changing the work and controlling the budget

These are the questions about reducing or changing what is built, correcting pricing and keeping the Client's total cost visible, where the main Option often changes the answer.

Ground, utilities and things found on Site

Physical conditions are tested by what an experienced contractor could reasonably have allowed for at the Contract Date, and that test sits behind most of what you find when you start digging.

Weather and flooding

Weather is measured against recorded data at a named place, and only a month's measurement rarer than once in ten years counts, so a bad spell on site does not always make an event.

Access, other parties and outside events

Delay caused by someone else needs careful sorting: the contract treats late access, the Client, Others and your own supply chain differently, and it deals with outside events through its own narrow tests.

Programme, float and Key Dates

The Accepted Programme is the baseline for assessing delay, so a missing, rejected or stale programme affects far more than the planner's week.

Completion and delay damages

Completion is decided by the definition in the Scope and contract, not by occupation or a handover date, and delay damages depend on the Completion Date currently in force.

Payment and final amounts

Payment problems tend to come down to dates and notices, and the pages here also cover what happens to retention and to events still open when the work ends.

Defined Cost and target contracts

On Options C, D and E, money follows cost records, so these questions focus on what can be disallowed, what is left to the Fee and how the target moves.

Defects, tests and searches

The Supervisor's role, the defects date and who was responsible for the work all matter here, including who pays when a search finds nothing.

People and subcontractors

These pages cover key people and the Project Manager's acceptance, and they look at the gaps that open up when a subcontract's terms and periods do not line up with the main contract.

Stopping, suspension and ending the contract

Stopping work is a contract step with consequences, and termination follows strict reasons and procedures, so read these before anyone sends a letter in anger.

Disputes and working relationships

Your dispute Option sets the deadlines, and these answers help you decide when to keep talking, when to refer the matter and what the duty of mutual trust and co-operation really adds.

Early warnings

An early warning is neither a claim nor an admission, and it does not stand in for notifying a compensation event, which is the misunderstanding behind most of these questions.

When your question isn't here

If nothing matches, the same questions usually lead to the answer. Who holds the risk? What does the Accepted Programme show? Has someone given a notice, and when did the clock begin? The list of NEC4 compensation events is the best place to test whether something counts. The main Options guide explains why the same event can leave a different party with the bill.

All guides in this section

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This guide is general information in our own words, not legal advice. Your contract and its Contract Data always govern. NEC, NEC3 and NEC4 are trade marks of Thomas Telford Ltd; Contract Status is not affiliated with or endorsed by NEC.