What Is a Notice to Proceed?

Notice of award tells the bidder they were selected and usually demands bonds, insurance, and the signed agreement within a set number of days. None of that, by itself, authorizes crews on site. Owners wait to issue the NTP until those conditions are met, and sometimes until a permit is in hand. The gap is intentional.

Contract time measured from award instead of from NTP punishes the contractor for the owner’s delay in issuing the notice, unless the contract says that is the deal. Read the time article. "Days from NTP" and "days from execution" are different projects.

A limited NTP lists the work allowed: submittals, procurement of long-lead items, demolition, or a site package. Anything else is not authorized, and payment should be limited to the listed scope. Contractors who mobilize the whole job on a limited notice and then claim delay when the full NTP slips are arguing a letter they did not read.

Owners who issue a limited NTP because the permit is incomplete should not expect construction duration to start. If the clock starts anyway, the owner is spending float before the contractor can build. Write whether contract time starts, and for which portion.

Insurance, bonds, safety plans, and baseline schedules are often conditions precedent. An NTP issued before they arrive, or work started in reliance on a verbal NTP, leaves a hole when something goes wrong in week one. The notice should acknowledge which conditions are satisfied and which are still required before related work.

Permits can sit with the owner or the contractor depending on the contract. An NTP is not a building permit. The authority having jurisdiction does not treat the owner’s letter as authorization to build. Field work without the permit is an enforcement problem on top of a contract problem.

The contractor’s baseline CPM should use the NTP date as the start, or the date the contract specifies. A schedule that starts "when we get the permit" with no data date will not prove a delay later. If the NTP is limited, the baseline should show only the authorized path and a milestone for the full notice.

Delay claims measure entitlement against this start. Lost letters and undated emails are why owners and contractors both keep the NTP in the contract file, not in a project manager’s inbox. The date on the letter is the date. A kickoff meeting is not a substitute.