FIDIC Clause 20 claims: a time-bar checklist

The clock at a glance (FIDIC 2017)

The checklist

1. Fix the awareness date. The 28 days run from when you became aware of the event — or should have. Record the date you first knew, and how. Everything else is counted from here.
2. Send the Notice of Claim within 28 days. Describe the event and say it is a claim under Sub-Clause 20.2. A late notice can bar the claim entirely, whatever its merit.
3. Watch for the Engineer's objection. If the Engineer thinks the notice is late, they have 14 days to say so; if they don't, the notice is deemed valid. Diary the 14 days — silence matters.
4. Keep contemporary records from day one. Records made at the time are the evidence the Engineer can inspect (Sub-Clause 20.2.3). Daily reports, instructions, photographs and letters written now are worth more than a reconstruction later.
5. Submit the fully detailed Claim within 84 days. It needs the contractual basis, the facts and the records relied on, and the time and money claimed. Missing the contractual-basis statement within 84 days can make the notice lapse.
6. Update monthly while the effect continues. A continuing event needs interim claims at monthly intervals, and a final claim within 28 days of the effect ending.
7. Diary the Engineer's own clocks. 42 days to agree, then 42 to determine. If the Engineer doesn't determine in time, the contract says what that means — know it before the date passes.
8. Decide on a Notice of Dissatisfaction within 28 days. If the determination isn't acceptable, the NOD must be given within 28 days of receiving it, or the determination becomes final and binding.

What changes under the 1999 edition

• Notice is still 28 days after becoming aware (Sub-Clause 20.1), but there is no deemed-valid mechanism for the Engineer's silence.
• The fully detailed claim is due within 42 days, not 84.
• The Engineer responds within 42 days of receiving the detailed claim.
• Interim claims continue monthly, with a final claim 28 days after the effect ends.

Where teams actually lose claims

Rarely on the law. Usually on a letter that sat in an inbox, an awareness date nobody wrote down, or records assembled months later. The fix is procedural: register every contractual letter the day it arrives, start the clock the day the event is known, and keep the records where the claim will need them.

That is what BuildCore's FIDIC contract administration tools do: letters registered with their time bars, claims tracked against the notice and detailed-claim deadlines for your edition, and a claim flagged time-barred the day a notice deadline passes. For hindrances under Indian contracts — CPWD, NHAI, Indian Railways — see Hindrance & EOT.