Refer a payment dispute to adjudication

Read the clock for the application in dispute: the dates, the notices actually served, the ones that were missed or served out of time, and the sum the module derives as notified. Take the derivation as it is printed rather than paraphrasing it into a sentence.

Why: Most British payment disputes are decided on the sequence rather than on the valuation. Whether a payment notice was served, whether a pay less notice stated its basis and whether either was in time will usually settle the sum before anybody looks at the work, so this is the cheapest thing to get right and the most expensive to get wrong.

Build the evidence pack from the source records: the notices, the correspondence, the RFIs, the approvals, the variation records and any delay analysis. The ordering is deterministic and the pack carries a content digest, so feeding the same records in a different order produces the same bundle.

Why: An adjudicator reads a great deal of paper in a short time, and an ordered pack is read differently from a folder of attachments. A digest also means the other side cannot end up holding a slightly different bundle from the one the adjudicator has, which is a dispute nobody needs inside a dispute.

Issue the notice of adjudication through the correspondence register: to the right party, at the address the contract gives for service, stating the nature of the dispute, what is claimed and the redress sought. The register keeps the date and the method of service with it.

Why: Service is where an otherwise good referral dies. A notice sent to the wrong entity inside a group, or to an email address the contract does not recognise, can be challenged on jurisdiction before anybody looks at the merits, and the seven days to the referral do not pause while that gets sorted out.

Put the referral and its annexes into the project files as one versioned, dated set alongside the notice. The response, the reply and the decision go into the same place as they arrive rather than into whoever happened to receive them.

Why: An adjudication produces a lot of documents in twenty eight days, across several people, usually while the job is still running. Keeping them in the project rather than in one mailbox is what lets the next stage, whether that is enforcement, a second adjudication or a settlement, start from the record instead of from a reconstruction.

Record the decision and what it changed: the sum payable, the date it is payable by, and any effect on the programme. An adjudicator's decision binds the parties until the dispute is finally determined, so it is the number the job works to from that day.

Why: The commonest failure after an adjudication is that the decision stays with the commercial team while the valuations carry on exactly as before. Reporting the outcome into the project is what makes the decision operate, and it also leaves the next job an honest record of what a dispute of this kind cost in time and attention.