Refer a construction dispute to adjudication

Any party to a construction contract covered by the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (the Construction Act) can refer a dispute under it to adjudication. That includes disputes about payment, the value of variations, extensions of time and defects. You can start at any time, even while work is going on, and the contract cannot stop you or make you try something else first.

If your contract does not set out an adjudication procedure that meets the Act, the Scheme for Construction Contracts applies instead.

Give a notice of adjudication

Send a written notice of adjudication to every other party to the contract. Under the Scheme it must set out briefly:

• what the dispute is about and who is involved
• where and when it arose
• what you want the adjudicator to decide
• the names and addresses of the parties, including any addresses the contract gives for notices

Get an adjudicator appointed

Use the adjudicator named in the contract, or the nominating body it names, if there is one. Otherwise apply to an adjudicator nominating body. Send a copy of your notice with the request. Under the Scheme, a nominating body must tell you who it has chosen within 5 days, and the person asked must say within 2 days whether they will act.

Serve the referral notice

Within 7 days of your notice of adjudication, send the adjudicator your referral notice: your full case in writing with the contract and the documents you rely on. Send a copy to the other parties. The 28 days for the decision run from when the adjudicator receives it.

The decision

The adjudicator must decide within 28 days of the referral. You, as the referring party, can agree to extend that by up to 14 days, and both sides can agree a longer period. The adjudicator can correct a clerical or typing slip in the decision.

The decision binds both sides until the dispute is finally decided by a court, by arbitration or by agreement. Unless it says otherwise, you must comply with it as soon as it is delivered. If an adjudicator decides a payer owes more than its payment or pay less notice said, the extra is due within 7 days of the decision, or by the original final date for payment if that is later.

If the other side does not comply

You can bring court proceedings to enforce the decision. The other side can still ask a court or arbitrator to decide the dispute afresh, but it must comply with the adjudicator's decision in the meantime.