Introduction
On 15 December 2014, the much-anticipated amendments to the Building and Construction Industry Payments Act 2004 (Qld) commenced operation.
The Building and Construction Industry Payments Amendment Act 2014 (Amendment Act), which significantly reforms the security of payment regime in Queensland, was passed by the State Parliament on 11 September 2014 and has been awaiting a commencement date while some further fine-tuning of the amendments was undertaken (discussed below).
The key changes effected by the Amendment Act are discussed in our earlier legal update " BCIPA reform: the amendments we had to have".
Notably, these include:
- the transfer of the role of Authorised Nominating Authorities to the central Adjudication Registry, administered by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission;
- the creation of a dual adjudication regime for simple and complex claims, complex claims being claims of more than $750,000; and
- the extension of timeframes for responding to payment claims and adjudication applications, particularly in relation to complex claims; and
- the amendment of the definition of "business day" to include a longer Christmas blackout period from 22 December until 10 January.
Amendment to transitional provisions
The transitional provisions of the Amendment Act have been modified to address industry concerns regarding what would have been the effective operation of two security of payment regimes in Queensland. This was due to the fact the old regime was set to continue to apply to contracts entered into before the commencement of the Amendment Act.
This potential administrative minefield has been avoided by the removal of the offending provision from the Amendment Act. Under the modified transitional arrangements, the new security of payment regime will apply to all construction contracts from the commencement date. A limited number of transitional and "outstanding" matters will be dealt with under the old regime.
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