Resources · Queensland
Extension of time notices in Queensland subcontracts
An extension of time notice tells the other party that a delay event has occurred, when it started, what caused it, and what effect it has on the date for practical completion. In most Queensland subcontracts the notice period is a condition precedent: give it late and the entitlement is lost, however genuine the delay.
- Reviewed
- Jurisdiction
- Queensland, Australia
- Reading time
- 7 min
- For
- Subcontractors managing programme risk on Queensland projects
Extensions of time are a matter for your contract, not for the security-of-payment legislation. There is no statutory EOT regime in Queensland — what follows describes what these clauses almost always require and how notices fail, but your own subcontract governs.
Why the deadline is the whole thing
Most subcontracts require notice within a short period — commonly between 5 and 14 days of the delay event, or of when you became aware of it — and express that requirement as a condition precedent to the entitlement. That phrasing matters. It means the notice is not an administrative step you can catch up on later; it is the thing that creates the right. A perfectly genuine four-week delay, notified in week five, is worth nothing.
What goes in the notice
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| The delay event | What happened, factually and without argument. “Access to Level 3 east was not available” rather than “we were badly managed by the builder”. |
| When it started | A date, and where possible a time. If the event is continuing, say that it is continuing and that the notice will be updated. |
| The contractual basis | The clause you are claiming under, and the category of delay it falls into (a qualifying cause, an act or omission of the principal, inclement weather, a variation). |
| The effect on the programme | Which activities are affected and whether they are on the critical path. If you cannot yet quantify it, say so and commit to a date by which you will. |
| The extension sought | A number of days if you have one. If you do not, an explicit statement that the period is not yet determinable and why. |
| Mitigation | What you are doing to reduce the effect. Many clauses require reasonable steps to mitigate, and a notice that ignores it invites that response. |
Writing one when you do not yet know the delay
This is the situation that causes most late notices. The event has happened, the deadline is running, and nobody can say yet whether it costs three days or three weeks — so the notice waits for certainty and misses the window.
The answer is to notify the event on time and quantify separately. A notice that says “the delay event is X, it commenced on this date, it is continuing, the effect on the date for practical completion is not yet determinable and we will provide a quantified claim within 10 business days of the event ending” satisfies most notice clauses and preserves the entitlement. Waiting for a number you do not have does not.
The records that decide it a year later
- —Site diaries completed daily, naming who was on site, what was worked on, and what was not able to be worked on.
- —Dated photographs of the condition that caused the delay, not just of the finished work.
- —The programme as it stood before the event, so the critical path can be shown rather than asserted.
- —Correspondence at the time — an email sent the day access was refused is worth more than a statutory declaration made eight months later.
- —Weather records from the Bureau of Meteorology station nearest the site, where inclement weather is the cause.
Delay claims are decided on contemporaneous records. Almost every subcontractor who loses one had the entitlement and did not have the diary.
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