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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 provided a payment schedule in accordance with the SOP Act.

Download a sample form adjudication response form (PDF, 500.7 KB).

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
  • identify any amount of the payment claim that the respondent alleges is an excluded amount.

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.

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

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.

Excluded amounts

Your adjudication response must identify any amount of the payment claim you allege is an excluded amount.

The SOP Act also requires respondents to identify any alleged excluded amount in the payment schedule.

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 should make the adjudicator aware of any reasons for withholding payment that were not provided in the payment schedule. The adjudicator is required to inform the claimant of these reasons. The claimant then has two business days to lodge a response to those reasons with the adjudicator.

Lodgement deadline

You must lodge the adjudication response with the adjudicator within five business days after receiving a copy of the adjudication application from the claimant, or two 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. This can be done in any of the following ways:

  • delivered in person
  • lodged during business hours at the respondent's ordinary place of business
  • sent by post to the respondent's ordinary place of business
  • faxed to the respondent's ordinary place of business
  • provided in any other manner specified in the contract.