Commercial Construction Projects

Construction disputes are commonplace because they often involve a complex hierarchy of participants (subcontractors) who each depend on the quality of work meeting certain standards and timely flow of payments. These types of disputes can quickly escalate into messy expensive quagmires.

Subcontractors in the building industry have various tools available to them to secure fast payments. There are the standard debt recovery procedures, but these processes are often too slow or ineffective to achieve practical solutions within acceptable time-frames. However, there is also the process under the Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2009. The Security of Payment legislation is designed to allow subcontractors to get paid immediately to protect cash flow. This process is fast and comparatively affordable and follows the philosophy ‘pay now, argue later’.

However, there are many technical elements to claims under the Security of Payment legislation. Additionally claims made can be contested in Court on the basis of jurisdictional error resulting in complex, time-consuming and extremely expensive litigation. For this reason, it is important to navigate these claims carefully to avoid potential minefields.

The team at Maxwell & Co has experience lodging and fighting for Security of Payment claims, including jurisdictional challenges.

Talk to us to see how we can assist.