Anyone wrote into an NEC contract a “Delay Damage free period” from the Completion Date?
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Funnily enough reviewed that exact principal in a contract only last week for a project I am about to run a joint NEC workshop for. The Client (it is NEC4) has amended contract data part 1 delay damages to say that the first 12 weeks will be delay damage free, and the delay damage charge will be from a point twelve weeks beyond the Completion Date.
No right or wrong here as to whether the Client should do this. What they are doing is decreasing the Contractor’s risk, which you would expect to attract a cheaper tender price in the first place.
Thanks for your reply, would it not be simpler to have a key date that reflects the require completion date and then state the completion date in the contract data as the date for the end of the ‘honeymoon’ period?
If you did as you suggest the honeymoon period would not be all that fun as use of Key Dates gives the Client the right to recover additional costs from the Contractor … not the best start to a marriage!
Nico - I am not saying I think it is a good idea, and not very often have I seen it, but I was just saying they could do it if they wanted if it suited the Clients risk profile i.e. we won’t charge delay damages until a certain point and then we will. As Neil says - a Key Date carries a very different liability and would be more onerous as it carries undefined costs rather than no costs…