Disputed accounts are allowed to drift on the assumption that they can be dealt with whenever somebody gets to them. Several different time limits say otherwise, they run concurrently, and missing one can close a position that was otherwise sound. Identifying which apply is an early step in a final account dispute review.
What follows describes the kinds of limit that exist rather than the position on any particular contract, because the periods differ by form and by amendment, and some of these questions are legal rather than commercial.
Contractual periods for submitting the account
Most contracts require the contractor to submit its account within a period after practical completion, with supporting documents.
Where that period is missed, the consequence depends on the contract. Some forms allow the contract administrator to proceed on the information available, which is rarely favourable to the contractor.
Treating the period as advisory is common and occasionally expensive.
Periods for assessment and certification
The other side has its own periods: to assess the account, to issue a statement or certificate, and to notify the balance due.
Those obligations are real, and a failure to perform them is a position worth recording rather than simply tolerating.
A contractor waiting indefinitely for an assessment that the contract required months ago has a point worth making in writing.
The conclusive effect of a final certificate
Under many forms the final certificate becomes conclusive on certain matters unless proceedings are commenced within a short period after its issue.
That period is measured in weeks, and it runs whether or not the parties are still negotiating.
This is the limit most likely to catch a party by surprise, because it arrives with a document rather than on a date anybody has diarised.
Limitation
Separately from the contract, the law imposes outer limits on bringing claims, and the period depends on how the contract was executed.
Those periods are long compared with contractual deadlines, which is why they rarely bite first, but they are absolute in a way contractual periods sometimes are not.
When they start running is a legal question that depends on the facts, and it is worth asking rather than assuming.
Adjudication and its own timing
The right to adjudicate is generally available at any time in contracts to which the relevant legislation applies, which makes it a route that remains open when others have closed.
That does not mean delay is costless. Evidence degrades, people leave, and a claim brought years later is harder to prove whatever the formal position.
It also does not override a conclusive certificate where one applies, which is why the two have to be considered together.
Retention release as a separate clock
Retention has its own release events, usually tied to practical completion and to the certificate of making good.
Those are independent of the account being agreed, which means retention can fall due while the rest of the account is still in dispute.
Pursuing it separately is frequently the quickest cash available, and retention recovery assessment is the narrower piece of work.
Why accounts drift anyway
Because none of these clocks announces itself. Nothing happens when a contractual period expires except that a position quietly weakens.
Because the people who would notice have moved to other projects, and the account belongs to nobody in particular.
And because resolving it requires somebody to accept less than they claimed, which is a decision that postpones easily.
Building a timetable
At practical completion, list the periods that apply: submission, assessment, defects, making good, final certificate, retention release.
Put dates against them and give the list an owner. That single page prevents most of the drift.
Revisit it when any of the trigger events occurs, because several of the periods depend on events rather than on the calendar and will move.
What to do if time is short
Establish which limit is closest and what it actually closes, which is a document question answerable quickly.
Take advice where the question is legal, particularly on conclusive certificates and limitation, because the consequences are not recoverable.
And prioritise. A compressed review of the items that carry the value is better than a thorough review that finishes after the deadline.
The deadline that is not in the contract
Projects also close for practical reasons: the company that employed the project team restructures, the site records are archived, the people who remember leave.
None of those is a legal limit and all of them reduce what can be proved, which has the same practical effect.
A position established while the project is fresh survives those changes; one left to be reconstructed afterwards usually does not.
Keeping a position alive
Where an account cannot be resolved quickly, the practical step is to make sure nothing lapses while it waits: notices served, positions recorded, requests made in writing.
Silence is what weakens a position over time, not disagreement. A matter left unmentioned for two years looks abandoned whatever the file says.
A short letter every few months, recording that the matter remains in dispute and what is awaited, costs nothing and preserves a good deal of ground.
Where it sits
Time limits are the reason a disputed account should be addressed deliberately rather than left to drift, and they are the easiest part of the position to establish.
Running the account properly through the project means most of these periods pass without consequence, which is final account preparation work rather than dispute work.
Where an account has already drifted, knowing which clocks have run and which are still running determines what can realistically be done.
Final account stopped moving?
A final account dispute review reconciles the account, sets the disputed items out on a schedule with their basis and evidence, and gives a view on where the gap can realistically be closed.