How much does construction adjudication cost?
You pay two costs: the adjudicator's fees, which the decision shares out, and your own costs of preparing your case, which you normally cannot recover.
Updated: . By Jack Butler-Kettle, Construction Claims Consultant.
The answer
The adjudicator charges for the time spent, plus expenses. The decision says who pays, most often the losing side, but both sides are jointly liable to the adjudicator. Your own costs, meaning your consultants, solicitors and staff time, stay with you whatever the outcome. A clause making one side pay the other's costs does not work unless it is agreed in writing after the notice of adjudication. That rule is in section 108A of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. So adjudication suits disputes where the sum is well above the cost of preparing the case. Size the preparation to the dispute. For smaller sums, there are low-value schemes with capped adjudicator fees and simpler procedures. No figure is given here, because fees depend on the adjudicator, the sum and the volume of documents. Our own fee is fixed and agreed in writing before the work starts.
Example
Illustrative example. The scenario and figures are invented.
The facts
Your disputed final account balance is £22,000, and you plan a fully documented referral with full valuation evidence. Before the referral is written, the cost is weighed against the sum.
What happens
- The likely adjudicator's fees and your own preparation are estimated against the £22,000.
- If those costs are likely to come close to half the sum, a capped-fee scheme or a settlement meeting first is the commercial route.
- If the notice position is clean and the referral is short, the cost is small against the sum.
The outcome
The route follows the estimate. Where costs near half of the £22,000, it is a capped-fee scheme or a settlement meeting. Where the notices are clean and the referral short, it is a direct referral.
Late Payment Claim is scoped to the size of the debt before anything is prepared.