The Adjudication Response is the Respondent’s opportunity to make a submission to the Adjudicator on issues raised by the Claimant in the Security of Payment Adjudication Application.
There are strict time frames on serving the submission to the Adjudicator and it is pertinent that a Respondent carefully considers the issues raised by both parties in compiling the Adjudication Response. We provide example proformas for the adjudication response for the various states and territories at these links:
It is worth noting that in most states the Respondent may not be allowed to introduce any new reasons for withholding payment that has not already been raised in the Payment Schedule. This highlights the importance of the Payment Schedule in delivering your position to the Adjudicator.
Response times have changed in QLD for contracts commencing on and from the commencement of the 2014 Amendment Act on Monday 15 December 2014 as follows:
- Standard Claims
- Complex Claims which are defined as claims greater than $750,000 (GST exclusive) .
No new reasons still remains applicable for Standard adjudication responses BUT for Complex Claims new reasons can be introduced in the adjudication response.
As such it is advisable you consider referring to the relevant guidance notes on your Act which you may access by reading the information provided by the QBCC.
This is also not the case in Victoria for all adjudications.
As such it is advisable you consider referring to the relevant guidance notes on your Act which you may access by reading the information provided under each Adjudication Scheme. To assist the reader the following extract from Fact Sheet 10 is provided:
Required information
To be valid, an adjudication response must:
- Identify the adjudication application to which it relates
- Include the name and address of any relevant principal of the respondent
- Include the name and address of any other person who the respondent knows has a financial or contractual interest in the matters that are the subject of the adjudication application, and
- Identify any amount of the payment claim that the respondent alleges is an excluded amount.
Relevant principal
A relevant principal is any person who has engaged the respondent under a contract to provide construction work, goods or services, if the work that the claimant has done or the goods or services that the claimant has supplied under contract to the respondent is, or is part of or incidental to, the construction work, goods or services that the respondent was engaged to carry out or supply.
The adjudicator must notify any relevant principal of the adjudication application.
Note: This does not include the principal in a domestic building contract to which the Act doesn’t apply. For more information about this exemption see Fact Sheet No 1: The Security of Payment scheme.
Excluded amounts
An adjudication response must identify any amount of the payment claim that the respondent alleges is an excluded amount. The Act also requires the respondent to identify any alleged excluded amount in the payment schedule.
Additional information
The adjudication response may contain any submissions relevant to the response that the respondent chooses to include. Copies of documents relevant to the submissions should be attached.
The respondent should make the adjudicator aware of any reasons for withholding payment which were not provided in the payment schedule. The adjudicator is required to inform the claimant of these reasons, following which the claimant has two business days to lodge a response to those reasons with the adjudicator.
NOTE : In other States & Territories, if there is a document purporting to be a Payment Schedule which was received by the Claimant outside the timeframes specified by the relevant Act, then this document may be viewed as being an “invalid” Payment Schedule. Hence the Respondent may not be entitled to rely upon the document in responding to an adjudication application. It is pertinent that legal/professional advice is sought in such circumstances.