Adjudication under the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) (BIF Act) provide a rapid mechanism for resolving payment disputes in the construction industry. The objective is straightforward: to determine, on a provisional basis, how much money should flow now, leaving the parties to litigate their ultimate rights later, if they wish.
But many adjudications never get that far.
A review of adjudication decisions between January 2025 and March 2026 indicates that approximately 30% of applications (approximately 85) were denied on jurisdictional grounds, excluding applications withdrawn prior to determination.
This confirms what may be obvious to many: adjudication is a jurisdictional minefield.
The same mistakes appear repeatedly. Claimants well-versed on their contract entitlements often stumble on basic procedural requirements underpinning the adjudicator’s authority to decide their claim.
This article identifies five of the most common jurisdictional traps, how they arise in practice and how to avoid them.
Trap 1: getting the reference date wrong
While other states are moving away from the concept of a reference date, in Queensland a reference date is the starting point for any payment claim under the BIF Act. Without a valid reference date, there is no entitlement to make a claim and no jurisdiction for an adjudicator to determine the dispute.
Reference dates arise either under the contract or, where the contract is silent, on the last day of each month. A payment claim must be made on or after a reference date – never before. And critically, each reference date can only be used once.
This catches claimants out in several ways. Some serve a payment claim before the relevant reference date has arisen. Others attempt to rely on a reference date already used for a previous claim. A third group misunderstand what happens to reference dates after Practical Completion or Final Completion, resulting in claims based on dates that no longer exist.
Recent decisions have dismissed claims where:
- a payment claim was served three days before the contractual reference date;
- a second claim was lodged using a reference date already used for an earlier claim;
- a claimant could not establish the commencement date needed to determine when reference dates arose; and
- a final payment claim was made without satisfying the contractual preconditions required to trigger the final payment reference date.
| Practical takeaway |
| Before issuing any payment claim, confirm the relevant reference date in your contract, check whether it has already been used, and ensure the claim is served on or after (not before) that date. For post-PC claims, seek advice on which reference dates remain available. |
Trap 2: failing to properly identify the construction work
Section 68(1)(a) of the BIF Act requires a payment claim to identify the construction work or related goods and services to which the claim relates. This is not a matter of formality or substantiation, it is a strict jurisdictional requirement.
If the payment claim does not properly identify the work, the claim is not valid, and the adjudicator has no power to determine it.
The defect appears more often than you might expect. Common examples include:
- vague or generic descriptions of work with no link to specific contracted scope;
- reliance on invoices that record a dollar amount but do not describe the work performed;
- claims framed as “unpaid amounts from prior claims” or “back charges” without identifying the underlying work; and
- descriptions so high-level that an adjudicator cannot determine the work actually carried out (e.g. mere percentages without identifying ‘what’ and ‘where’).
Adjudicators are not required to forensically audit a mountain of supporting material to identify the work performed. Where the payment claim itself is not sufficiently clear on its face, adjudicators have consistently found the jurisdictional threshold is not met.
One 2025 decision dismissed a claim for a failure to properly identify the construction work, despite the claimant having provided over 2,000 pages of supporting documentation. The problem was not a lack of material, that the work was not performed or could not be evidenced as performed, the payment claim itself failed to identify the construction work with sufficient clarity.
| Practical takeaway |
| Describe the construction work in the payment claim itself. Include the relevant contract line items, the scope performed (quantities / areas), and the period of work. Supporting documents (e.g. photographs of the work) supplement the claim but do not replace the need for the claim to stand on its own. |
Trap 3: defective payment claim drafting
Even where the underlying entitlement is sound, a poorly drafted payment claim can be fatal in adjudication.
The BIF Act prescribes what a payment claim must contain, and basic non-compliance will deprive the adjudicator of jurisdiction.
Common drafting failures in recent decisions include:
- a claim that does not include a clear request for payment of the claimed amount (s 68(1)(c));
- a payment claim with no date, or one where the date shown is inconsistent with the reference date;
- attempts to rely on a substituted document as the payment claim (without disclosing the substitution); and
- two or more invoices presented as a single payment claim, where only one reference date is available.
The Queensland Court of Appeal confirmed in MWB Everton Park Pty Ltd v Devcon Australia Pty Ltd [2024] QCA 94 that a document which identifies “amount due this claim” but does not separately “request payment” will fall short of s 68(1)(c). Several 2025 adjudication decisions have applied this principle to deny jurisdiction.
The BIF Act is not designed to be a trap, but claimants should not assume that practical interpretation is a substitute for formal compliance.
| Practical takeaway |
| Use a clear, compliant payment claim template. Ensure the claim is dated, identifies the construction work, and expressly requests payment of the claimed amount. Where multiple invoices are issued in a period, seek advice on whether they can properly constitute a single payment claim. |
Trap 4: failing to identify the correct construction contract or respondent
Before an adjudicator can deal with the substance of a claim, two threshold questions must be answered:
- is there a “construction contract” within the scope of the BIF Act?
- is the respondent the party obliged to make the payment claimed?
These questions appear rudimentary. In practice, claimants are regularly caught out.
Issues seen in recent decisions include:
- a claim lodged in the name of the wrong contracting entity (for example, the trading entity rather than the contracting entity);
- an arrangement characterised as a credit facility or plant hire agreement rather than a construction contract;
- a payment claim made against a respondent that was not a party to the relevant construction contract;
- a contract that falls within an excluded category under the BIF Act, such as a residential construction contract with the homeowner; and
- a claim where the work performed was not “construction work” as defined, for example, heavy commercial vehicle maintenance services.
Where there is any ambiguity about the contracting structure, particularly on projects involving related entities, joint ventures, or informal / multi-contract arrangements, claimants are at risk of falling into jurisdictional error.
| Practical takeaway |
| Check the contract carefully before lodging. Confirm the identity of the contracting parties, verify the respondent is the party named in the contract, and consider whether the contract and work fall within the BIF Act’s scope. This is particularly important on projects involving related entities or non-standard arrangements. |
Trap 5: defective adjudicaton applications
A valid payment claim can be undermined by a defective adjudication application. The BIF Act imposes strict requirements on how and when an adjudication application must be made and served. Non-compliance is jurisdictional, not procedural.
The most frequently recurring problems in 2025 decisions involved service of the application. Section 79(4) of the BIF Act requires the claimant to serve a complete copy of the adjudication application on the respondent within four business days of lodging with the QBCC. This requirement is not satisfied by:
- emailing only the Form 79 without supporting documents;
- serving documents that do not precisely match what was lodged with the QBCC;
- posting USB drives or other physical media instead of properly serving the documents; or
- serving before lodgement (which, on the face of it, is not service of an adjudication application at all).
Other common application defects include a failure to attach the payment claim to the Form 79, omitting a copy of the construction contract, and lodging out of time.
The Queensland Court of Appeal recently confirmed that failure to serve the complete application is fatal to jurisdiction. Adjudicators must be satisfied that proper service occurred, and gaps in the evidence will be held against the claimant.
| Practical takeaway |
| Treat the adjudication application as carefully as the payment claim itself. Use a checklist to confirm every required attachment is included, serve the complete package on the respondent within four business days of lodgement, and maintain clear evidence of service. The form and timing of service are just as important as the substance of the claim. |
conclusion
Across all five traps, the theme is the same.
The claims failed not because of a lack of contractual entitlement, uncompelling submissions or evidence, but because jurisdictional requirements were overlooked or misunderstood.
Adjudication is deliberately fast and that speed comes with a trade-off: all jurisdictional requirements must be strictly satisfied, and once jurisdiction is lost it cannot be revived.
The good news is that most jurisdictional defects are avoidable. Careful preparation of payment claims, disciplined adherence to reference dates, and a methodical approach to adjudication applications will eliminate the pitfalls described above.
Stay tuned for further updates in our fortnightly publication, ‘No Jurisdiction Corner’, where we track recent adjudication decisions and jurisdictional lessons emerging under the BIF Act.
If you require assistance preparing or responding to a payment claim or adjudication application, our construction and infrastructure team at Mullins Lawyers would be pleased to assist.
This article was co-authored by Partner, Alex Nordang and Senior Associate, Nick Thomas.
