How does construction adjudication work?

The right to adjudicate at any time

Section 108 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 - the Construction Act - gives every party to a construction contract the right to refer a dispute to adjudication at any time. "At any time" is not a figure of speech. You do not have to wait for practical completion, exhaust some internal escalation, or get the other side's permission. The right attaches to any contract for construction operations carried out in the UK, and it cannot be contracted out of. If your contract stays silent on adjudication or sets up a non-compliant procedure, the Scheme for Construction Contracts fills the gap and supplies a compliant one by operation of law.

For a subcontractor chasing money, this is the most powerful lever in UK construction law. A main contractor who has sat on your Application for Payment, or withheld a Notified Sum without serving a valid Pay Less Notice, is exposed the moment you serve notice. There is no minimum contract value and no requirement that the sum be large. The dispute simply has to have crystallised - the claim made, and rejected or ignored.

The process, step by step

Adjudication follows a fixed statutory sequence. The clock is short by design, and each stage runs into the next:

• Notice of adjudication. You issue a written notice to the other party setting out the dispute, the redress you seek, and the parties and contract involved. This starts the process and defines its scope - the adjudicator can decide only what the notice puts in issue.
• Appointment of the adjudicator. Named in the contract, nominated by an adjudicator nominating body, or appointed under the Scheme. This normally happens within seven days of the notice.
• Referral. You send the referral notice - your case and supporting documents - to the appointed adjudicator. The 28-day clock runs from the date of this referral, not from the notice.
• Response. The responding party serves its answer, typically within seven to fourteen days as the adjudicator directs. The adjudicator controls the timetable and can call for further submissions or a meeting.
• Decision. The adjudicator must reach a decision within 28 days of the referral. That period can be extended by up to 14 days with the consent of the referring party, or by any longer period the two parties agree between them.

The discipline of the timetable is the point. A dispute that would spend a year in court is decided in weeks, on documents, by someone who knows construction.

Binding immediately, enforced by the TCC

An adjudicator's decision is binding the moment it is made. It is not a recommendation and it is not provisional pending appeal. It binds the parties until the dispute is finally determined by litigation, by arbitration, or by their agreement - and until that happens, it must be complied with. That is the pay now, argue later principle established in Macob Civil Engineering v Morrison Construction [1999] EWHC 254 (TCC), where Dyson J held that “the decisions of adjudicators are binding and are to be complied with until the dispute is finally resolved”: a party ordered to pay must pay, and cannot hold the money hostage to a later challenge on the merits.

If the losing party does not pay, the winner enforces the decision in the Technology and Construction Court. The TCC enforces adjudicators' decisions robustly, granting summary judgment and refusing to reopen the substance of the dispute save in the narrowest jurisdictional or natural-justice cases. For a subcontractor, that is the whole value: a decision that turns into money, backed by a court that will not entertain delay.

Timeframe, cost, and why it exists

Measured against the alternative, adjudication is fast and cheap. Court proceedings over an unpaid account can run for a year or more and cost tens of thousands of pounds. Adjudication delivers an enforceable decision inside roughly a month, on paper, for a fraction of that outlay. Each party generally carries its own costs, and the adjudicator's fee is modest against a High Court trial. Parliament built it this way deliberately. UK construction runs on the slowest payment terms of any sector - days sales outstanding of 65 to 80 days is normal - and 3,827 UK construction firms went insolvent in the twelve months to March 2026, specialist subcontractors more than half of the monthly count. Adjudication exists to stop a solvent business being starved of its own money while a dispute grinds through the courts.

The catch is that an adjudication is only ever as strong as the evidence you bring to the referral. Dates, notices, and the sequence of what was served and when decide these cases, and reconstructing that record after the fact is where subcontractors lose. Contra keeps it built as you go: The Register™ holds every live AfP across every main contractor; The Clock™ counts the statutory deadline on every notice; the instant a payment deadline lapses without a valid Pay Less Notice, the sum becomes Crystallised Entitlement™ - yours to force. The Record™ is the dated, admissible evidence pack the whole adjudication turns on, assembled the moment you refer. Draw Forward™, advancing cash against a Notified Sum, is coming. Request access.