Check the calendar used in a daily delay calculation
Inspect calendar definitions and inclusive start/end counting in a proposed daily delay-charge calculation without deciding enforceability.
Corporate Recovery Partners
01 / 06
The count may contain the disagreement
The builder's delay calculation multiplies a daily rate by a number of days. Your team accepts neither the date range nor the calendar used. Before responding with a competing total, identify precisely how the days were counted. A disagreement about weekends or boundary dates is different from a disagreement about responsibility for the delay.
Give the contract, amendments and relevant date notices to your construction lawyer. Ask what the applicable wording means for the calculation. Do not assume working days, calendar days or a holiday exclusion applies simply because that convention appears in the programme or on another project. Different contractual provisions may use different definitions for different purposes.
Business.gov.au's contract guidance recommends documenting agreed contract changes. Retain the relevant completion-date changes and supporting correspondence beside the calculation. Label disputed or unconfirmed dates rather than silently replacing the original date. The adviser needs to understand the date history before assessing which starting point or ending event the claim can properly rely on.
Reproduce the arithmetic without accepting liability
Prepare a day-by-day working showing the claimed first and last day and the treatment of weekends or holidays. Check whether both endpoints were included. If comparing alternative assumptions, label each one clearly. A calculation prepared for review should not be represented as an admission that the rate, period or underlying claim is legally valid.
Imagine the arithmetic includes one day twice at the boundary between two schedule rows. Correcting that error would not determine an extension request or responsibility for a delayed activity. Keep those issues in separate notes for the adviser. A clear arithmetic challenge is useful, but it should not conceal other unresolved contractual or factual questions.
Provide the supported date records and the precise counting issue through the advised response process. Check relevant deadlines independently of the discussion. The next reader should be able to reproduce the numbers and see what remains disputed. That is a stronger basis for addressing a daily demand than exchanging totals whose calendar assumptions are hidden.
