Important information
Below you will find some important information you need to know before applying for adjudication. Please take a minute to read through this page carefully before making your application.
The Notice of Adjudication
The first step in the process is to serve a Notice of Adjudication on the other party or parties to the dispute – these will be the other parties to the construction contract under which the dispute has arisen.
You may also choose to serve the Notice of Adjudication on the owner of the construction site where the owner is not a party to the construction contract and you wish to seek a determination of that owner’s liability under section 30(a) and/or approval for the issue of a charging order under section 30(b).
Applying to the Building Disputes Tribunal
The Building Disputes Tribunal (BDT) is an authorised nominating authority (ANA) under the Construction Contracts Act 2002 (the Act).
Any party to a dispute arising under a construction contract is entitled to apply to us for the appointment of an adjudicator. There is no requirement to try to agree on the identity of the adjudicator with the other party (although of course you are also entitled to do so). Instead, you can apply directly to BDT and we will appoint an appropriately skilled and experienced adjudicator for your case typically within one working day. BDT does not charge the parties a fee to make that appointment.
PLEASE NOTE: an application for appointment of an adjudicator must be made in the period between and including two to five working days after the notice of adjudication is served on the other parties to the adjudication (ie barring the occurrence of any statutory non-working days – if the notice is served on a Monday you cannot make your application to BDT until the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of that week or the Monday of the following week – if the notice is served on a Friday you cannot make your application to BDT until the following Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday).
