It's a bespoke contract and we're running it like a JCT

Bespoke contracts borrow standard-form language, so they read familiar, and familiarity sets the routine: applications on the usual date, notices in the usual window, the usual assumptions about what needs recording. The document meanwhile does its own thing - different dates, different conditions precedent, a notice clause with sharper teeth - and nothing in daily administration surfaces the difference.

The difference surfaces the first time a clause is actually needed. The application was two days early and this contract says early applications are invalid; the claim needed notice within fourteen days and habit said monthly. On a bespoke form, habit is not a defence. The fix is one proper read: the terms mapped against how the job is actually being run, and the routine corrected where the two disagree - before the clause gets its day.