Claimants should type the notice on letterhead, complete the date and $ fields and sign the notification. The most common method of service is fax to the respondent’s ordinary place of business.
The claimant should ensure that the fax journal report is retained in the event of a dispute as to the date of service or whether the notification was served at all. All fax machines provide at least three journal report options.
- No report
- One line report so as reports of many faxes are on one page
- Full page report showing the time, date, fax number and partial photocopy of the first page of the notification.
Providing the full page report (Option 3) is strongly preferred if there is a dispute over service.
Other methods of service are in accordance with any contract provision or served in accordance with the Act by delivering it: 
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In person to the respondent; or
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By lodging it during normal business hours at the respondent’s ordinary place of business; or
- By sending it by post to the respondent’s ordinary place of business; or
- By email, where an email address has a history of usage between the parties.
It is most important that the claimant keeps a record of the time, date and manner of service as time runs from the date of service.
What happens if the Payment Schedule is received within 5 business days of service of the s17(2) notice?
If the claimant receives the payment schedule within 5 business days of service but either:
- disagrees with the scheduled amount; or
- full payment of the scheduled amount is not made by the due date;
the claimant may proceed to adjudication.
The adjudication application must be made within 10 business days from the date of expiry of the s17(2) notice.*
*Note: herein lies two traps for many a claimant and their advisers.
- If the respondent fails to pay the full scheduled amount by the due date of payment, some adjudication claimants have assumed (wrongly) that they have 20 business days from the due date of payment to make the claim as this is the entitlement when the respondent serves an adjudication application at the first opportunity and fails to pay it. However this is not what the Act provides. Fortunately, on most occasions, 10 business days from the date of expiry of the s17(2) notice falls after 20 business days from the due date of payment. Correct counting of business days is crucial.
- The time to make the application is within 10 business days from the expiry of the s17(2) notice. This means that an adjudication application made before the expiry of the s17(2) notice but after the second opportunity payment schedule is received is invalid and will need to be resubmitted after the notice expires at the end of the 5 business days.
What happens if the Payment Schedule is still NOT received or received after the elapse of 5 business days?
If no payment schedule is received within the 5 business days of the notice, the claimant has 10 business days from the expiry of the s17(2) notice to apply for adjudication.*
In any case the claimant must submit the adjudication application within the time specified by the Act. Once the time is passed the claimant loses any right to adjudication with respect to the payment claim. Neither Adjudicate Today nor an adjudicator can extend these statutory stipulations. Effectively the payment claim has expired.
However any unpaid portion of the expired payment claim can be included in the payment claim for the next reference date, provided the new payment claim is valid.
Please move to the next step on the flowchart being "Respondent has 5 business days from receipt of s17(2) Notice from Claimant to prepare & serve Payment Schedule".
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