Notice, Thy Name Need Not Be Nasty

Originally published by Building & Bonding: The Construction Group Newsletter

On many a construction project, a claim has been substantially impaired by a party's simple act of failing to provide a notice—required either by statute or by contract—in order to validate the claim. Given the increasing volume of documents generated on construction projects, it may be difficult to imagine how these vital communications are often overlooked. Or are they? While it appears that many notices are not given simply due to inadvertence or not appreciating the statutory or contractual requirements imposed for the project, in other instances, notices have been deliberately withheld due to a perception that providing them would create animosity for the project and produce more significant consequences than failing to preserve a particular claim.