The interim payment claim is the document that starts the clock

The Construction Contracts Act 2013, in force since 2016, gives a payee on almost every construction contract in the State a statutory right to interim payments. The mechanism is not a certificate handed down by the other side. It starts with the payee, and it starts with a document called the payment claim.

The payment claim date

Every contract subject to the Act has to name a payment claim date, or a way of working one out, for each interim payment. That date is the anchor. On or after it the payee serves a payment claim notice setting out the amount claimed and how it was calculated. Miss the date and the cycle slips a month, so the first discipline is knowing when the next one falls.

• The amount claimed. The gross value of work done to date, less what has already been paid, stated as a single sum.
• The basis of calculation. The measured work, the variations, the materials, set out so the payer can check the figure rather than guess at it.
• The period. The stage of the works the claim covers, tied to the payment claim date the contract fixes.

What the claim triggers

Under the default position in the Act the amount claimed falls due for payment no later than thirty days after the payment claim date. The payer can dispute the figure, but only by responding inside the window the Act allows, and only in the form the Act requires. Silence does not reduce the claim. It leaves the claimed sum standing.

That is why the claim has to be built properly the first time. A round number with no breakdown invites an argument. A claim tied line by line to measured work, priced variations and materials on site gives the payer far less room to knock it back, and gives the payee a clean document to refer to adjudication if the payer says nothing at all.

RIAI and public works

Whether the job runs on an RIAI form or a Public Works Contract under the Capital Works Management Framework, the Act sits over the top of the contract. The forms set the payment claim date and the detail of the response, the Act sets the floor. A payee who understands both knows exactly what to submit and exactly when the money is due.

The habit

Diary the payment claim date for every cycle at the start of the job. Build the claim from the same measured model each month so the figure moves with the work and never with a guess. The claim you serve on time, in full, is the one that gets paid on time and in full.