Concurrent Delay and Float Ownership: Who Gets the Time

Delays rarely happen one at a time. When an owner-caused delay (a late design release, an unapproved submittal) overlaps on the critical path with a contractor-caused delay (a manpower shortfall, a subcontractor's slip) during the same window, the delays are concurrent. The widely applied rule is that concurrent delay entitles the contractor to a time extension — because part of the delay was the owner's — but denies the contractor delay damages for the concurrent period, because the contractor would have been delayed anyway. The owner likewise cannot collect liquidated damages for a period in which it contributed to the delay.

The result is a kind of standoff: time is extended, but neither side collects money for the overlap. Which delays were truly concurrent, and which sat on the critical path, becomes the entire fight.

Float is the slack on non-critical activities — the days a task can slip without delaying the project. Whoever "owns" the float controls a buffer that can absorb delay without consequence. Contracts allocate float three ways: to the owner, to the contractor, or to the project as a shared resource. The shared-resource model — float belongs to the project and is available on a first-come, first-served basis — is common and quietly favors whichever party consumes it first, often the owner through change-order sequencing.

A contractor that builds float into its schedule and then loses it to an owner-driven resequencing has effectively given away time it earned. That is why float ownership is a term to read, not assume.

Concurrency and float disputes are won with contemporaneous critical-path-method schedules, regularly updated, that show what was actually on the critical path when. A reconstructed, after-the-fact schedule built for litigation carries far less weight than baseline and monthly updates created in the ordinary course. Contracts increasingly require CPM scheduling, timely updates, and notice of delay events precisely because that record decides these claims.

Subcontractors should keep their own records even when the GC controls the master schedule, because a sub's entitlement can be lost in the gap between what happened and what the official schedule documented.

Find the float-ownership provision and understand who controls the slack. Flag clauses that assign all delay to the contractor regardless of cause, that bar time extensions for concurrent owner delay, or that let the owner consume float without compensation. Confirm the notice and scheduling requirements you must meet to preserve a delay claim.

These provisions are easy to miss in dense general conditions, and they decide real money. A first-pass review should surface the float and concurrency language so your team negotiates it before the schedule — and the dispute — is underway.