Adjudication
Adjudication is the fast statutory process under security of payment legislation for resolving payment disputes: a decision on the documents, typically within weeks, binding until final proceedings, and enforceable as a debt.
It is not court: no lawyers required, no hearings in the usual sense, and determinations typically land within ten business days of the adjudicator accepting. It was built for one thing (cash flow), and it is won on paperwork assembled months before the dispute existed: notices, site records, dockets, emails that anchor dates.
Why it matters to subbies
Most subbies never need to file, because a builder who knows you can (and that your records support it) pays differently. Knowing your position under your state's Act is leverage before it is ever a filing.
Keep reading
General information for Australian subcontractors, not legal advice. Contract drafting and state legislation vary and change; your document and your state's Act govern. Written by Mat Kennedy at The Construction Contracts Co.