Responding to an adjudication application

If you have been served with an adjudication application, an adjudication response is your reply to the application.

You may lodge an adjudication response only if you served a payment schedule or performance security schedule in accordance with the SOP Act.

Required information

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.

Relevant principal

A person is a relevant principal of the respondent if:

• that person engaged the respondent under a construction contract to provide construction work or goods and services, and
• the claimant has carried out construction work or supplied goods and services to or for the respondent under the construction contract, and
• the claimant’s work or goods and services are, or are part of or incidental to, the construction work or goods and services that the respondent was engaged to carry out or supply.

Note: This does not include the principal in a domestic building contract. Domestic building contracts between a builder or supplier and the home owner are not covered by the SOP Act. These come under the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995.

Notifying relevant principal and other persons with a financial or contractual interest

The adjudicator must notify any relevant principal of the adjudication application.

The adjudicator must also notify any other person identified in the adjudication response and any person the adjudicator reasonably believes, on the basis of any submission from the claimant or the respondent, is a person who has a financial or contractual interest in the adjudication application of the application.

Additional information

The adjudication response may contain any submissions relevant to the response that you choose to include. Copies of documents relevant to the submissions should be attached.

You cannot include in your adjudication response any reasons for withholding payment or release that were not provided in the payment schedule or performance security schedule. The adjudicator will not be able to consider any reasons that were not included in a schedule.

Lodgement deadline

You must lodge the adjudication response with the adjudicator within 5 business days after receiving a copy of the adjudication application from the claimant, or 2 business days after receiving notice of an adjudicator’s acceptance of the application – whichever is later.

You must also serve a copy of the response, including any attachments, on the claimant no later than 3 business days after the response is lodged with the adjudicator.

The claimant’s copy of the adjudication response can be served in the manner (if any) required by the construction contract. In any other case, it can be served by one of the following means:

• by delivering it in person
• by leaving it at the claimant’s ordinary place of business
• by posting it to the claimant’s ordinary place of business
• in any manner instructed by the claimant as being an acceptable manner for service.

The adjudication response can also be served on the claimant’s agent.

Resource material