Withdrawal of Bids:

No submitted bid may be withdrawn for a period of sixty (60) days after the scheduled closing time for the receipt
of bid. This is designed to protect the bidder because otherwise the owner could hold the contractors to their bids
for an unspecified amount of time. If the expected financing or appropriation for the project does not materialize,
the owner could, in theory, say ‘‘Wait until next year, and I will enter into contract with you at this price.’’ This,
of course, would be potentially disadvantageous to the bidder. Therefore, the owner must send written notice of
award (e.g., notice to proceed) to the selected contractor during the acceptance period or the bidders are released
from their original proposals.

NTRACT/NOTICE TO PROCEED Notification of award of contract is normally accomplished by a letter

indicating selection and directing the contractor to proceed with the work. This notice to proceed consummates
the contractual relationship from a legal viewpoint despite the fact that a formal agreement has not been signed.
The contractual legal protocol for accepting proposals (offers) is satisfied by the issuance of this letter. The letter
also implies that the site is free of encumbrances and that the contractor can occupy the site for work purposes.
Provisions of the contract usually direct that selected bidders commence work on the site within a specified period
of time, such as 10 days. Figure 3.1 Chronology of bid procedure. 3.2 Award of Contract/Notice to Proceed 49
E1C03_1 10/01/2010 50 The notice to proceed has an additional significance. The date of the notice to proceed
establishes the reference date from which the beginning of the project is calculated. Therefore, based on the
stipulated duration of the project as specified in the supplementary conditions, the projected end of the project can
be established. As will be discussed, time extensions may increase the duration of the project, but the end of
project beyond which damages will be assessed for failure to complete the project on time is referenced to the
date of the notice to proceed. This might be specified as follows: Work shall be completed no later than one
thousand fifty (1,050) calendar days after the date of receipt by the Contractor of Notice to Proceed. Calendar
days are used because they simplify the calculation of the end-of-project date. In certain cases, the duration of the
project is specified in working days. The general conditions normally specify working days as Monday through
Friday. Therefore, each week contains 5 working days. In some projects, all encumbrances to entry of the
construction site have not been reconciled. Therefore, the ‘‘notice to proceed’’ cannot be issued since the
contractor is not authorized to enter the site. In such cases, to indicate selection and acceptance of a proposal, the
owner may send the selected bidder a letter of intent. This letter will indicate the nature of encumbrance and
establish the owner’s intent to enter into contracts as soon as barriers to the site availability have been removed