Adjudicating extensions of time in England and Wales

The general doctrine sits on the neutral extension of time page; this page covers what happens once an English EOT dispute reaches an adjudicator.

Any EOT dispute can be referred at any time, and the certificate can be reopened

The right is statutory and cannot be contracted out of. Under s.108 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 a party may refer a dispute arising under the contract to adjudication, giving notice at any time. The decision is due within 28 days of referral, extendable, and binds until the dispute is finally determined by litigation, arbitration or agreement. A refused or under-granted extension is such a dispute; so is a disputed Completion Date under NEC4.

The current text applies to contracts entered into on or after 1 October 2011, when Part 8 of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 commenced under SI 2011/1582 for England and SI 2011/1597 (W.185) for Wales. Where the contract's adjudication provisions do not comply with s.108, the Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Regulations 1998 applies, as amended in England by SI 2011/2333 and in Wales by SI 2011/1715 (W.194). Three paragraphs of Part I do most of the work:

The King's College London and Adjudication Society report counted 2,264 referrals in May 2023 to April 2024, a record. Do not quote a share of them as EOT disputes: the report's dispute-type figures are shares of 163 questionnaire respondents who could tick several categories, not shares of referrals.

An adjudicator can take an extension down to zero, by doing the certifier's prospective task

Mace Construct Ltd v Baltic Investment Holdings Ltd [2026] EWHC 976 (TCC) was a Part 8 claim for declarations after an adjudication, on an amended JCT Design and Build 2016 form. The Employer's Agent had granted Mace 7 weeks 5 days; the adjudicator reduced it to zero. Mace asked the court to declare that neither an adjudicator nor the court could fix a completion date earlier than the one the Employer's Agent had fixed (declaration 7). Adrian Williamson KC refused it (¶¶42, 52).

The operative passage is ¶50. The adjudicator "can open up, revise and review" the extension granted, and "is to carry out the task which that clause requires, i.e. a prospective assessment in response to the notice and particulars submitted under clause 2.24". Two consequences follow.

First, an extension already granted is not a floor. It is a decision like any other, and opening it up can produce less time as well as more. Mace's objection that a prospective review is hard to perform after the event went to evidence and procedure, not to principle (¶51).

Second, the adjudicator works from the notice record: the adjudicator goes back to the date the cl 2.24 notice and particulars were submitted and disregards later events (¶51). An as-built report in the referral cannot cure thin particulars. (Inference.)

Mace also shows how amendments move risk, and the limits of Part 8. Amended cl 2.1.3 put consents risk on Mace and excluded an extension under cl 2.25 for it (¶36(a)), alongside the printed cl 2.26.13 statutory approvals Relevant Event (¶36(b)). But the court refused declaration 6, on who bore planning and consents risk, as muddled and "highly fact sensitive" (¶¶38 to 41), so Mace does not decide that the risk passed. Read the Schedule of Amendments before the Relevant Events. The judgment does not address fixing a date earlier than the original Completion Date.

The first EOT decision rolls forward into every later adjudication

Sudlows Ltd v Global Switch Estates 1 Ltd [2023] EWCA Civ 813 is the leading recent Court of Appeal authority on serial adjudication, and it turned on delay. Waksman J had refused to enforce a later decision; the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and reinstated it, for £996,898.24 (¶97).

"The test is whether the dispute in the second adjudication is the same or substantially the same as the dispute that was decided in the first" (¶1). Applying it, the court drew on Akenhead J's "reasonably broad brush approach" in Carillion v Smith (¶49), and adjudicators "should be encouraged to give a robust and common sense answer to the issue" (¶56). The check is whether a second decision would be "fundamentally incompatible with the result in the first adjudication" (¶59). On the facts, the later adjudicator "was not clearly wrong to say that he was bound by the decision in Adjudication 5" (¶66), and the later delay claim was "the logical extension of the Decision in Adjudication 5" (¶83). New evidence relied on in the later reference was irrelevant and inadmissible there (¶87).

The strategic consequence is the most important point on this page. The first adjudication that decides entitlement for a period of delay fixes that period for the rest of the project, until a court or tribunal finally determines otherwise. Later references can add periods and events; they cannot re-run the earlier one with better evidence. A party that saves its forensic programme analysis for a later round on the same period may find it inadmissible, as the new evidence was in Sudlows (¶87). (Inference.)

Under NEC4 the adjudicator must decide the case argued, and the Accepted Programme must be proved

NEC4 has no extension of time clause. The remedy is a change to the Completion Date through a compensation event, assessed under NEC4 ECC cl 63.5 against planned Completion on the Accepted Programme. That makes the Accepted Programme the fulcrum of any NEC4 time referral.

Premier Modular Ltd v Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust [2026] EWHC 1404 (TCC) was NEC4 Option A, for a barn theatre at Maidstone Hospital. The Trust was to make a permanent mains water supply available "not later than 30 October 2023" (¶13) and provided it late. The adjudicator awarded £1,655,385.49. Both parties had addressed cl 60.1(1), (14) and/or (18); the adjudicator decided under cl 60.1(3), which neither party had argued (¶¶35, 39). It was common ground that "the Accepted Programme was never updated" (¶14(i)), yet the adjudicator's route ran through a finding that a revised programme, which neither party said was accepted, had become the Accepted Programme. Neither point was put to the parties. Summary judgment was refused for material breach of natural justice (¶¶42, 50, 51): "the Adjudicator went off on a "frolic"" (¶42). A separate time-bar ground and the jurisdiction challenge failed.

Two lessons follow. Plead the compensation event you rely on, and the alternatives: an adjudicator who prefers a different limb of cl 60.1 must put it to the parties, and a referring party should not depend on that happening. Prove the programme state: which programme was accepted, when, and whether deemed acceptance under cl 31.3 was triggered by the Contractor's further notice. A party that keeps the Accepted Programme current gives the adjudicator nothing to reconstruct. (Opinion.) If there is no Accepted Programme, cl 64.1 gives the assessment to the Project Manager. An adjudicator who thinks a different programme was accepted must put that to the parties before deciding on it (Premier Modular, ¶42).

The time bar sits upstream: a compensation event not notified within 8 weeks under cl 61.3 does not change the Completion Date, subject to the exception for the Project Manager's or Supervisor's own instructions, notifications, certificates or changed decisions. See notice and time bars in England and Wales.

Raise every defence in the adjudication, then take short points to Part 8

Clerkenwell Lifestyle (UK) Ltd v HG Construction Ltd [2026] EWHC 1406 (TCC) is the enforcement-side warning. On an amended JCT Design and Build 2016 contract, the contractor resisted a £955,943.43 decision by arguing that emails of February 2023 were a binding agreement on revised completion dates, which the adjudicator had failed to consider. Jefford J gave summary judgment to enforce. The emails were the parties operating the contractual extension mechanism (¶91), and "there was no binding agreement made on 8 February 2023" (¶94). An extension given that way is a decision under the contract, open to review in adjudication like any other. (Inference.)

The procedural holding travels. A natural justice challenge needs the defence, or facts that should reasonably be recognised as one, to have been raised in the adjudication (¶68). The contractor's Response had not done so (¶77), so there was no breach of natural justice (¶80). The Employer's Agent authority point (¶¶95 to 101) was an obiter fall-back and should not be cited as a holding.

The other route after an adverse decision is Part 8, for a final answer on a point of construction, as in Mace and Belong (Construction) Ltd v Seddon Construction Ltd [2026] EWHC 1275 (TCC). In Belong the adjudicator had decided for the contractor on 2 May 2024. On an amended JCT SBC With Quantities 2016 form preceded by a PCSA, the Employer obtained a ruling that pre-existing PCSA rights and liabilities "should survive and be capable of being enforced as such, even after the completion of the JCT Contract" (¶47), so that a PCSA failure to open up and test existing air-sealing could engage the no-extension proviso in cl 2.28.6.5 (¶¶33, 56). The final declarations (no extension; 10 weeks' LDs) were left to a consequentials hearing (¶¶59 to 60). Part 8 suits a short, document-only point, not a retrial of the delay analysis.

Liquidated damages run through payment notices, and you pay first

Most LD disputes reach adjudication through the payment cycle, with the Completion Date as the question underneath a deduction. (Opinion.)

S&T (UK) Ltd v Grove Developments Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2448 states that a payer without a valid payment or pay less notice may still adjudicate the true value (¶99), but must first pay the notified sum under s.111 (¶107). Grove's own pay less notice withheld liquidated damages (¶19). The point was academic on the facts, because Grove's pay less notice was valid (¶60). Bexheat Ltd v Essex Services Group Ltd [2022] EWHC 936 (TCC) applied it while recording that the relevant part of Grove was "technically obiter" (¶75). In practice the TCC treats pay first as the rule.

A "smash and grab" adjudication on a missing or defective pay less notice decides nothing about the extension, but it does decide who holds the money. An Employer whose LD deduction was not properly notified pays the notified sum and argues the Completion Date afterwards in a true value reference. The form's own LD preconditions must be satisfied as well: under the JCT forms, a non-completion notice and a notice of intention to deduct. Check the form.

How to run, and how to resist, an EOT adjudication

The referral is decided on the contemporaneous record, in 28 days, on the case you put.

What is not settled

[NEGATIVE FINDING] As at 13 October 2026 there is no reported English judgment construing the JCT 2024 extension provisions, including the new epidemic and change in law Relevant Events and the cl 2.24.4 information request. None of the cases above was decided on a JCT 2024 form: Mace, Clerkenwell and Belong were on amended 2016 JCT forms, Premier Modular on NEC4, S&T v Grove on an amended JCT Design and Build 2011 form and Bexheat on a bespoke sub-subcontract. How adjudicators treat an Employer's failure to decide within the shorter 8-week period is untested; the form provides no deemed grant.

Gateway delay looks set to become a regular referral subject. The BSR statistics published 15 September 2026 give a Gateway 2 median of 22 weeks for new build and conversions and a Gateway 3 median of 20 weeks. Whether gateway delay is a statutory approvals Relevant Event, a risk shifted by amendment (as in Mace), or an NEC4 compensation event at all will be argued contract by contract, and the amendments will usually decide it. (Opinion.)

The Commercial Payments Bill [HL], as at 13 October 2026, would insert new ss.113A to 113F into the 1996 Act, cap payment terms at 60 days (30 for public authorities) and prohibit retentions; it completed Report stage on 15 September 2026, with Third Reading scheduled for 20 October 2026. Without retentions, LD deductions become the Employer's main lever in a delay dispute. (Opinion.)

Compare Ontario and Australia, where time reaches an adjudicator only as an ancillary or valuation question.

Where Storia fits

An EOT adjudication is decided on the record that existed when the notice was served: the notice and particulars, the programme then accepted, and every earlier decision on the same period. Storia keeps that record linked and dated, so a referral or Response can show what was known, notified and accepted on each date without reconstructing it in 28 days.

Frequently asked questions

Can an adjudicator reduce an extension of time the Employer's Agent already granted?

Yes. In Mace v Baltic the adjudicator reduced an award of 7 weeks 5 days to zero, and the court refused the contractor's declaration that this was beyond power. The adjudicator can open up, revise and review the extension, performing the same prospective assessment on the cl 2.24 notice and particulars (¶50).

If we lose the first EOT adjudication, can we refer the same delay again with better evidence?

Generally not. Under Sudlows a later adjudicator is bound if the dispute is the same or substantially the same as one already decided (¶1). The routes are final determination in court or arbitration, or a genuinely different dispute.

Does a smash and grab adjudication decide whether we were entitled to more time?

No. It decides whether the notified sum must be paid. The Employer pays first and can then refer the true value, including the Completion Date and the LDs (S&T v Grove, ¶107).

What does an NEC4 time referral need that a JCT one does not?

Proof of the Accepted Programme, because the change to the Completion Date is measured against it (cl 63.5). Premier Modular shows an award failing for breach of natural justice where the adjudicator, without putting it to the parties, decided on a revised programme neither party said was accepted, when both had proceeded on the basis that "the Accepted Programme was never updated" (¶¶14(i), 42).

When should we use Part 8 instead of adjudicating again?

When the dispute is a short point of construction needing no disputed evidence, such as whether an adjudicator may fix a completion date earlier than the Employer's Agent's (Mace) or whether PCSA liabilities can defeat an extension (Belong). A fact-sensitive question will not suit: in Mace the court refused to declare who bore planning and consents risk (¶¶38 to 41). Part 8 gives a final answer; another adjudication gives another interim one.

About this material Library content is general information about construction claim practice, not legal advice. Entitlement, deadlines and procedure are governed by your own contract and by the law of the place the work is performed. Reviewed October 13, 2026 · Report a correction