By Patrick Mead
Following the extensive review of the Building and Construction Industry Payments Act (BCIPA) last year, the Queensland State government has today announced three key changes to BCIPA all effective from 1 September 2014.
- There will now be a single adjudication registry within the Queensland Building and Construction Commission (QBCC), who will maintain a registry of active adjudicators. This will mean the end of referring applications to individual Authorised Nominating Authorities, however the precise details of the new process are not yet available. The QBCC are also currently obtaining feedback from industry about how the skills and performance of Adjudicators can be improved and it is expected that this will flow into the process for appointment of adjudicators to be adopted by the QBCC.
- Timeframes under BCIPA have been amended to reflect the size and complexity of claims. There will now be longer periods to provide payment schedules and to respond to adjudication applications on claims over $750,000 or that involve latent conditions or time related costs. Further the period where time does not run under BCIPA over Christmas has been extended to reflect the longer industry shutdown periods.
- Adjudication responses will not be limited to the material raised in a payment schedule - an adjudication response can now include all relevant material and the claimant will be given a right of reply.
How will this change things now ? Not at all, the current process will remain unchanged until 1 September 2014. Carter Newell is well resourced to handle BCIPA matters at all levels specialising in large scale and complex claims and brings particular expertise to this area with Partners, Patrick Mead and David Rodighiero and Special Counsel, John Grant and Luke Preston all Registered Adjudicators under BCIPA (QLD).
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
