Adjudication

Adjudication is the statutory dispute resolution process under which any construction contract dispute can be referred to an independent adjudicator, whose decision binds the parties until the dispute is finally resolved.

The 28-day clock is what makes adjudication what it is. A referral lands, the response is due, and a decision arrives before most disputes would have finished exchanging correspondence. Pay now, argue later is the policy: the losing party pays, and if it still disagrees, the fight moves to litigation or arbitration with the money already moved.

In practice the battle is usually won or lost on records. The party that can show its valuations, its notices and its programme in an intelligible bundle is the party whose number survives. Adjudicators are not detectives; they work with what is put in front of them in the timetable the Scheme allows.

Related: pay less notice · extension of time · loss and expense

→ Adjudication: Enforcing Your Rights Under the Construction Act