Statutory Payment Notification Obligations Pursuant to HGCRA and BCISPA(NSW): A Comparative Study from the Perspective of Preventing Smash-and-Grab Adjudications Whilst Improving the Legislation’s Effectiveness

Charalampos (Harry) Meliniotis

September 2021

A commended entry in the Hudson essay competition 2020.

This paper provides a comparative study of the statutory payment notification obligations pursuant to Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 and the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 of New South Wales, as representative of the two different regimes around the world. The paper has a particular emphasis on the controversial smash-and-grab adjudications and argues that this problem is better resolved through statutory intervention. The paper analyses the components forming statutory payment notification obligations and recommends the measures that better promote the highest degree of procedural justice whilst improving the legislation’s speed.

I. Introduction – II. BCISPA(NSW)’s ‘parallel’ versus HGCRA’s ‘mandatory’ regime – III. Intervals between payment cycles – IV. The term ‘due date’ – V. Date to which each payment shall be valued – VI. Instigation of payment cycles – VII. Timing of payee’s application – VIII. Permitting only one application per payment cycle and requiring it to state that is made under the legislation – IX. Payment terms – X. Payer’s notification obligations and payee’s obligation to remind the payer to comply – XI. Conclusion

The author: Charalampos (Harry) Meliniotis BSc (Hons) MSc FCIArb MCIOB TCInstCES APAEWE is a PhD research student at the University of Leicester Law School and director of MCDR Ltd.

Text: 17 pages