Payment Claim Notices in Construction Contracts

Every construction payment war is won or lost months before it starts, in documents nobody finds exciting: the payment claim delivered on the right date stating the right things, and the response that either contests it properly or fatally doesn’t. Master this machinery and the Construction Contracts Act 2013 works for you; ignore it and the Act’s protections quietly lapse.

The Claim: Entitlement, Crystallised

The Act builds payment around payment claim dates — the contract’s schedule for claiming, with the Act’s default provisions filling gaps where contracts fail to provide compliant terms. On each date, the claim: the amount, the period or milestone, the basis of calculation. Behind it, the records that prove the basis — measured works, signed day-work sheets, instructed variations, delivery dockets. A claim so built is not an opening position; it is the document an adjudicator will later treat as the case.

The Response: Contest Properly or Concede Practically

A payer disputing the amount must respond within the statutory window, stating what it proposes to pay and why — reasons, not vibes. The discipline cuts both ways: subcontractors should treat a compliant adverse response as the dispute crystallising (and the adjudication clock becoming available), while contractors receiving claims should respond on time, with particulars, every time — because the adjudicator’s file will contain either your reasoned contest or your silence.

The Paperwork’s Payoff

• In negotiation: a claims file in statutory shape reads as a party ready to refer — and gets treated accordingly;
• In suspension: the statutory right to suspend stands on properly claimed, properly unpaid sums;
• In adjudication: the referral is substantially the claims file, annotated — 28-day processes reward pre-built cases;
• In enforcement: decisions built on clean claims survive resistance.

Build the System Once

None of this requires an office manager — it requires templates and a calendar: claims aligned to the Act and your standard contracts, delivery to schedule, a response protocol, records that prove valuation as you go. We set these systems up for trades as preventative work (contracts review), and the difference shows the first time a payer tests you: the firm with the file gets the phone call offering settlement; the firm without it gets the runaround. The wider toolkit: subcontractor payment disputes.