Where the extension of time machinery has broken down, contractors sometimes argue that time is at large: that no completion date applies and the obligation is to complete within a reasonable time. It is a legal argument rather than a commercial one, and it comes up often enough to be worth understanding before extension of time claim preparation begins.
This is a commercial note and not legal advice. The point here is what the argument does to a negotiation, which is frequently not what the party raising it expects.
What the argument says
That the contractual mechanism for fixing a new completion date has failed, so there is no date against which delay can be measured.
The consequence advanced is that liquidated damages cannot be deducted and the obligation becomes one to complete within a reasonable time.
Whether that follows depends on why the mechanism failed and on what the contract says, which is where the difficulty starts.
When it is said to arise
Where the employer has prevented completion and the contract provides no route to relief for that cause.
Where the mechanism has not been operated at all, or has been operated so defectively that it cannot be said to have been operated.
Those are narrow circumstances, and most projects where the argument is raised do not fall within them.
Why it is usually overstated
Standard forms are drafted to prevent it, with wide relevant event lists and provisions covering employer acts of prevention.
A late or imperfect assessment is ordinarily a failure to operate the mechanism properly rather than a failure of the mechanism itself.
Which means the argument tends to be answered rather than won, after considerable cost on both sides.
What it does not give you
It does not produce money. Loss and expense travels its own route and a successful time at large argument does not open it.
It does not produce a date, which means the contractor is left arguing about what a reasonable time would have been.
And it does not remove damages at law, where the employer may still claim actual loss caused by delay.
What a reasonable time means in practice
An argument about what the project should have taken, by reference to the work, the circumstances and the events.
That is a harder and less predictable argument than one about specific delay events against a programme.
Contractors who reach it frequently find themselves wishing for the mechanism they were arguing had failed.
How employers respond
By operating the mechanism, which frequently cures the complaint and is available at almost any point.
By pointing to the relevant event provisions as covering the cause relied on.
And by claiming damages at law in the alternative, which puts the contractor in a worse position than a modest extension would have.
The negotiating effect
Raising it signals that the contractor has given up on the contractual route, which hardens the other side rather than softening it.
It also moves the dispute from facts, where good records help, to construction, where they do not.
A party with strong records on specific events is usually better served by using them than by abandoning the framework they fit into.
When it is worth raising
Where the circumstances genuinely fit and legal advice supports it, which does happen and is not common.
Where the alternative is no route at all, because the contract provides no relevant event for the cause of delay.
Even then it is usually pleaded alongside the contractual case rather than instead of it, which is a matter for the lawyers advising.
What to do instead
Press the mechanism. Serve the notices, provide the particulars, and ask for the assessment the contract requires.
Where the assessment does not come, the failure to assess is itself a matter that can be taken forward, including by adjudication.
That route produces a date and sometimes money, which is more than the alternative usually delivers.
Where the mechanism really has not been operated
Record the requests, the dates and the absence of response, because that record is what any later argument rests on.
Consider whether the failure itself is a dispute worth referring, which is frequently quicker than it sounds.
And take advice on the position early rather than after the final account, because the options narrow as the project recedes.
Liquidated damages in the meantime
Deductions continue while the argument runs, which affects cash flow regardless of who is ultimately right.
That practical pressure is usually what decides whether a long argument about construction is affordable.
Addressing the deduction directly, through the payment provisions, is frequently the faster route to relief.
What clients should expect to hear
That the argument exists, that it is narrow, and that it is unlikely to be the best available route on the facts of their project.
That the contractual route, properly operated, usually produces more and sooner.
And that where the argument does fit, it is a matter for legal advice rather than for a surveyor to run.
Where it fits
Time at large is a legal argument and the factual work beneath it is the same work the contractual claim needs.
Whether the mechanism has failed on the facts is initial dispute review work, taken together with legal advice.
Operating the mechanism properly while the project runs is cost control and variations work, and it is what keeps this argument unnecessary.
Where it has become necessary, the useful question is not whether the argument is available but what it would actually achieve, and that is a commercial question before it is a legal one.
On most projects the answer is less than the contractual route would have produced, which is worth saying plainly at the start.
Running late with nobody agreeing why?
Extension of time claim preparation sets out the events relied on, their effect on the programme and the contractual route to relief, in a form that can be assessed rather than argued over.