An extension of time claim adjusts the completion date and relieves the contractor of liability for liquidated damages for the period granted. It does not, by itself, award any money.
Money follows separately, through loss and expense or through the valuation of variations, and only where the contract makes that particular event compensable. Some events give time without money by design.
Time and money are different tests
An extension of time asks whether a relevant event has delayed completion. Loss and expense asks whether a relevant matter has caused the contractor loss, and whether the notice and information requirements were met.
The lists overlap but they are not identical. Exceptionally adverse weather typically gives time and not money. A client instructed variation typically gives both. A contractor's own subcontractor gives neither.
Assessing them together, as a single negotiated figure, produces an outcome that reflects the parties' relative pressure rather than the contract. It also produces a settlement neither side can explain to their own board.
The programme is the evidence
A delay analysis requires a programme that existed before the events, was updated during them, and shows the critical path. Where no such programme exists, the analysis is being constructed after the fact and carries much less weight.
Several analytical methods exist and they produce different answers. Which is appropriate depends on the records available and on what the contract says, and that choice should be made and stated rather than defaulted to.
What is not acceptable is an assertion that the project finished late by a given number of weeks and that the client caused all of it.
Concurrency
Where a client delay and a contractor delay operate over the same period, the entitlement question is harder and the answer depends on the contract and the facts.
Commercially, a claim that ignores a contractor caused delay running alongside is vulnerable, because that is the first thing a defending party looks for.
Addressing it openly produces a stronger document than pretending it is not there. Where the legal position on concurrency is in issue, that belongs with solicitors rather than with a surveyor.
What time actually costs
Prolongation, being the time related site costs for the compensable period, assessed from actual cost rather than from the tender allowance.
Head office overhead and profit, where the contract and the circumstances support recovery, on a stated basis.
Inflation on work pushed into a later period, where the contract does not already deal with it.
Finance costs, both parties' in different ways. For the client, an extended facility. Equally, for the contractor, working capital carried longer.
Each of those is proved separately, and the detail sits in loss and expense, what has to be proved.
Assess as you go
Extensions of time are supposed to be assessed within a period of the notice, not accumulated to the end. A contract administrator deferring every application until practical completion is not operating the contract.
Deferral hurts both parties. The contractor cannot plan, the client cannot forecast, and the analysis eventually happens without the records that would have made it straightforward.
On phased schemes with overlapping events the effect compounds fastest, which is why sectional programmes and prompt assessment matter most there, as set out under complex phasing.
The damages interaction
Liquidated damages can only be levied for periods where no extension is due. Deducting damages while time claims remain open produces two arguments running at once and settles neither.
The sequence that works is to resolve the extension of time position first, then apply damages to whatever period remains, then deal with loss and expense on the compensable period.
Doing it in any other order means revisiting earlier decisions as later ones resolve, which is where months go. The pattern when it is left is described in variation claim exposure.
What this means for you
Separate the two questions explicitly, in writing, at the point a claim arrives. Half of the difficulty in these disputes comes from the parties discussing different things.
Then assess time claims when they arise rather than at the end. It is what the contract requires and it is cheaper for both sides. Our approach sits under cost control and variations.
Time claim on the table and unsure what it costs?
Send the programme, the notices and the events. We will separate the time question from the money question.