What is a smash and grab adjudication?

What a smash and grab adjudication is

A smash and grab adjudication is an adjudication brought to recover the Notified Sum in full because the main contractor did not serve the notices the Construction Act requires. It is not a fight about how much the work is worth. It is a fight about whether the paperwork was served on time, and when it was not, the law fixes the sum due at whatever the Notified Sum was.

The name is trade shorthand. You smash through the valuation argument and grab the sum the contract already put on the table, because the main contractor forfeited the right to dispute it by missing the deadline. It is a procedural entitlement, plain and blunt: the money is yours to force, and the reason is a failure to serve, nothing more.

Where the Notified Sum comes from

Under s.110A, the payer must serve a Payment Notice within 5 days of the due date, stating the sum it considers due, which becomes the Notified Sum. If the payer serves nothing, the subcontractor's Application for Payment becomes the default payment notice and the sum applied for becomes the Notified Sum. The figure the sub put on its AfP is now the figure the law recognises.

To pay less than that, the main contractor must serve a Pay Less Notice before the final date for payment, stating the reduced sum and the basis for it. The Scheme for Construction Contracts sets the default at not later than 7 days before the final date for payment where the contract is silent. The Payment Notice and the Pay Less Notice are two distinct notices; a late or missing one of either is the crack a smash and grab drives through. No valid Pay Less Notice means the Notified Sum is due in full.

How a smash and grab runs

Adjudication is fast by design. Under s.108 either party may refer a dispute at any time, and the adjudicator must reach a decision within 28 days of referral. That period can be extended by 14 days with the referring party's consent, or longer if both sides agree, but the default clock is tight and it is the sub who controls the timing of the referral.

• Refer the dispute: set out the AfP, the Notified Sum, and the absence of a valid Payment Notice or Pay Less Notice.
• The adjudicator decides within 28 days, on the notices, not the valuation.
• The decision binds until the dispute is finally determined by litigation, arbitration or agreement: pay now, argue later, the principle confirmed in Macob v Morrison [1999] EWHC 254 (TCC).
• If the main contractor does not pay, the decision is enforced by the Technology and Construction Court, which enforces adjudicators' decisions robustly.

Smash and grab versus true value

A smash and grab decides that the Notified Sum is due because of the missing notice. A true value adjudication decides what the work is actually worth. They are different claims answering different questions, and the order between them is settled. In S&T (UK) Ltd v Grove Developments Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2448 the Court of Appeal held that a main contractor who has lost a smash and grab must pay the Notified Sum first, and only then may it start a true value adjudication to establish the correct figure. As Coulson J framed the rule, later upheld by the Court of Appeal, an employer who missed its notices “has to pay the amount claimed by the contractor ... But the employer is then free to commence its own adjudication proceedings in which the dispute as to the ‘true’ value of the application can be determined”.

That sequencing is the point of the whole exercise. The sub gets the cash into the account now, on a procedural failure the main contractor cannot cure after the event, and carries any valuation dispute afterwards from a position of strength rather than starving while it waits.

Why subcontractors use it, and how Contra runs it for you

Subcontractors use smash and grab because it converts the main contractor's own sloppiness into cash. UK construction days-sales-outstanding runs at 65 to 80 days, and 3,827 UK construction firms went insolvent in the twelve months to March 2026, specialist subcontractors more than half of the monthly count. A missed Pay Less Notice is the fastest lawful route from an unpaid application to money in the bank, and it turns on one thing: knowing the deadline lapsed and being able to prove it.

Contra is built to catch exactly that. The Register™ tracks every Application for Payment across every main contractor you work for. The Clock™ runs the statutory countdown on each notice, so the moment a Payment Notice or Pay Less Notice window closes you know. Crystallised Entitlement™ marks the instant a deadline lapses and drafts the demand letter, and The Record™ holds the dated, admissible audit trail of what was served and when, ready for a referral. Draw Forward™, advancing the Notified Sum before it is even paid, is coming.

You held up your end. The contract and the Construction Act are on your side. Request access to Contra and stop letting missed notices sit as unclaimed cash.