Notices that survive scrutiny: FIDIC time bars in practice

1. Why the Notice decides the claim

Under FIDIC 2017 Sub-Clause 20.2.1, the Notice of Claim is a condition precedent: if it is not given within 28 days of when the claiming party became aware — or should have become aware — of the event, the Time for Completion is not extended and the other relief is lost, subject only to the narrow 20.2.5 route. The 1999 forms' Sub-Clause 20.1 works the same way for Contractor claims.

This is the single most litigated mechanism in FIDIC practice, and the cheapest to comply with. A short, timely Notice preserves everything; a perfect claim served late preserves nothing.

2. Pin the awareness date — it starts the clock

The 28 days run from awareness of the event or circumstance, not from when its impact is felt or quantified. For an instruction, awareness is usually its receipt; for a differing site condition, the day it was encountered; for a creeping event (say, escalating approval delays), the day a reasonable contractor would have recognised an event giving rise to a claim.

Record the basis for the awareness date at the time — a diary entry, an email, a meeting minute. If the date is later disputed, contemporaneous evidence of when you knew is the difference between in time and out of time.

3. What a valid Notice must actually contain

FIDIC 2017 defines a Notice in Sub-Clause 1.3: in writing, identified as a Notice, and delivered as the contract prescribes (addresses, systems, copy parties per the Contract Data). The Notice of Claim itself must describe the event or circumstance giving rise to the claim — it need not quantify, argue law, or attach the analysis.

Practical content that keeps a Notice safe: the event, the date of awareness, the clause(s) believed to be engaged, a statement that time and/or cost will be claimed, and a reservation that particulars follow under 20.2.4. Keep it factual and short; argument belongs in the detailed claim.

4. The Notice is step one, not the job done

20.2 imposes follow-on duties that also carry consequences: contemporary records (20.2.3), the fully detailed Claim within 84 days of awareness — including the contractual basis, without which the Notice can lapse (20.2.4) — and for continuing events, monthly interim particulars and a final claim (20.2.6). The Engineer's agreement-or-determination then runs under 3.7 with its own timescales.

Map each duty to a date the day you serve the Notice. Most blown claims are not blown at the Notice — they are blown at day 84.

5. Check your Particular Conditions for the traps

Employers routinely tighten 20.2 in the Particular Conditions: 14 or 21 days instead of 28, added formalities (named addressees, specific systems, language), notice requirements duplicated in other clauses, or time bars added to the Employer-risk gateways themselves. The General Conditions answer is only the starting point — your contract's answer is the one that binds.