Our Adjudication Philosophy | Gold Coast Qld

Adjudication Consultancy

For Claimants & Respondents

Industry Sectors Serviced

Generally: External & In-House adjudication consultancy to Tier 1 contractors & suppliers including Pragmatic Analyses of contractual claim chains from operations to tender, to workfaces, to contract administration to accounts, for payment received, recoverable or disputed.

Infrastructure Projects: FIFO Offshore Commonwealth Government facilities & Onshore Defence facilities; TMR roadworks for Property Developers, Builders and Councils; and Qld Govt. Ministry Department civil works for Social Housing developments

Industrial Projects & Civil Works: Rail workshops & light rail; Upgrades for fuel / centrifuge / pump stations; Water & sewage treatment plants; Tunnel Jet Fans; Bridge works; Electrical infrastructure; Brisbane Airport redevelopments and Manufacturing plant & facilities.

Premium High Rises: New commercial offices / hotels / apartments / carpark including refurbishments & additions in the Brisbane CBD, Brisbane Airport, Greater Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.

Health Facilities: New construction hospitals in Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Northern NSW including helipads additions to existing hospitals in Sydney and Northern NSW.

Commercial Shopping Centre Redevelopments: Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Northern NSW.

Education Facilities: Queensland Government secondary & special schools and private sector schools & colleges.

Sporting Facilities: Sports stadiums, sports & leisure centres on the Gold Coast and Northern NSW including a shooting range in Brisbane.

Residential: New housing estates developments, townhouses, mixed-use developments, executive residential and refurbishments, extensions & alterations including insurance works.

Adjudication Submissions

Claims & Responses: Adjudication consultancy payment claims & payment schedules formulations and submissions for Standard (<$750k incl. GST) and Complex (>$750k incl. GST) Adjudication Applications & Responses as well as enforcements and Expert Witness Litigation Support following Adjudication Decisions.

Current Barriers to Adjudication Submissions

Having had "hands on" contractor qualified site working experience together with quantity surveyor Adjudication Submissions and Registered Adjudicator experience, it is critical to have clear accurate timely documentation prior to accessing the workface and then efficiently completing the works c/w a valid payment claim or payment schedule for a profitable outcome.

The reality now in the current 'Communications Age', is the recurring problems encountered by contractors, suppliers & other claimants or respondents of ever growing voluminous tendering & contractual documentation compliances, prior to and at the workface, including thereafter, together with the relentless daily communication trail via hard copy & electronic submission compliances.

Further compounded, by incurred offsetting of risks & responsibilities passed down the contractual chain via "Front End" legal consultants risk offset engineered "back to back" contracts, predominantly to the workface install contractor and / or supplier. However, the current Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) adjudication procedures can address some of these unfair risks and provide fairness for contractors, suppliers & other claimants or respondents.

It is critical that a payment claim or payment schedule is properly supported from inception creation via operations scheduling resources, relevant workface records, input to contract administration for timely submission, and for payment to be received by accounts for the positive cashflow life of a business.

Importantly for Adjudication Submissions, for properly supported relevant documented unpaid payment claims or respondent set-off payment schedules to be recovered at a minimal of time and cost impediments to the claimant's or respondent's business operations.

Adjudication Consultancy Solutions

The Roman Law maxim 'Ubi Jus Ibi Remedium’ –"Where there is a Right there is a Remedy" is foundational to Security of Payment Law. Therefore, initially a debtor needs to be dissuaded from non-payment as a preferable sound commercial decision, as opposed to having to respond to properly supported relevant documented Adjudication Submissions from a contractor, supplier or other claimant or respondent.

Subsequently, the claimant or respondent must be armed with both a "strong shield" to fend off the ever increasing engineered offset losses from debtors, and with a "sharp sword" as a deterrent to strike balance for equitable consideration, if or when required.

Adjudication Consultancy offered to clients, is to enable Pragmatic Solutions to counter non-payment risk and losses in the first instance, or otherwise to maximise then recover unpaid payment claims or payment schedule set-offs with properly made relevant support for Adjudication Submissions and Debt Recovery Negotiation.

Thereafter, to implement enforcements of Adjudicated Amounts, or alternatively as a last resort, providing timely economical Expert Witness Litigation Support to the client's legal consultants to expedite strategic debt recovery.

THE CONTEMPORARY QUANTITY SURVEYOR'S ROLE IN AUSTRALIAN ADJUDICATION richly resonates from the Foreword for The Chartered Surveyor His Training & His Work published in the UK in 1932 by The Chartered Surveyors' Institution, written by the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill M.P.:

"In a complicated and expanding civilisation such as ours the status and character of the learned or scientific professions become matters of great consequence. The importance of high standards of technical efficiency is obvious: but even more important is that sense of professional honour and fidelity which springs from prolonged vocational training and a lively sense of corporate responsibility. . . .

The term surveyor no doubt covers a wide range of practice, from the land agent, who may be responsible for the care of many thousands of acres of agricultural land and woodlands, through overlapping stages to the quantity surveyor, who accounts to us for the cost of the houses in which we live. . .
A love of justice and equity and a firm resolve to deal with every issue on its true merits without fear, favour or affection, are inseparable from the rightful discharge of a surveyor's duty. Let us then hope that they will fortify themselves for their task by a strong and healthy esprit de corps so as to win for themselves an ever-increasing measure of the confidence of the public and the honour that comes from doing right things well."

"Respectfully", Winston S. Churchill's 1932 original 4 page Foreword (quoted in part above), has been renamed & reprinted twice in the USA as The Valuer and his Profession in the The Appraisal Journal (July 1966 pp. 326-328) & (March 2007 pp. 114-115) as an exemplary Valuer's role, albeit, excluding the full 27 page original booklet and without any Appraisal Institute reference to the book's Quantity Surveyor profession & Adjudication role. Contemporary Critical Review of Reprints pursuant to s.41, s.41A & Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).