Key Dates

Key dates are contractually fixed dates by which defined sections or conditions of the works must be achieved, breach of which carries liquidated damages separately from the overall completion date.

Where it sits: JCT 2016/2024 support them via sectional completion machinery; NEC4 uses Key Dates as a defined term with associated delay damages in the Contract Data.

Key dates slice the completion obligation. A retail shell by September, the fit-out by November, occupation before the trading season: each carries its own damages, and the contractor manages a portfolio of deadlines rather than one. The commercial care is symmetry — key dates should have the same extension-of-time protection as the completion date, or the contractor carries risks it cannot control.

They also concentrate employer obligations. Access, information and client decisions dated as carefully as the works they enable, or the key date becomes the argument the contractor was handed for free.