It is the time of merriment, the time for joy, the time for increased staff absences and for cheeky unexpected claims … oh yes, it’s that time of the year again, it’s the festive season!

As the Christmas and New Year’s season quickly approaches, it is important to put down the glass of bubbles and make sure that you have made appropriate arrangements not only for staff, but for your projects and clients too.

If you are planning a Christmas shutdown period, remember that there is no official “shut down” period (despite anything to the contrary within the industry) other than public holidays. In NSW those dates are:

• Monday, 25 December 2017;
• Tuesday, 26 December 2017; and
• Monday, 1 January 2018.

With respect to on-going projects, if your contract allows, you should make any extension of time requests or claims for the shutdown period during this time. For any new contracts you are about to agree to where work is expected to start before Christmas, make sure you consider and take into account any anticipated issues or delays as a result of the shutdown and negotiate these with your client.

The holiday season is also a time to be aware of payment claims under the Building and Construction Security of Payment Act 1999 NSW (the Act), made with the specific aim of taking you off guard and with potentially severe consequences if you fail to respond within the required timeframe.  Claimants often serve payment claims in the lead up to Christmas to take advantage of reduced staff levels with all the festive events, school holidays and travel as well as office closures.

Importantly under the Act, there are mandatory timeframes for the service of payment claims, payment schedules, adjudication applications and adjudication responses. These timeframes are stated in business days. If you serve a document too late (or in some instances too early) the relevant document may be considered invalid.

To ensure that you do not get caught out during this holiday season, you might wish to think about the following:

• Review your contract and try to anticipate when a progress claim might be made from contractors and how long you will have to respond.
• Keep in mind that in NSW any time frame relating to key documents under the Act, is counted from the first business day after the relevant event occurs. For example, if you are served a valid payment claim on Monday, then the first valid business day would be next valid business day, being  Tuesday (unless of course this was a Public Holiday.
• REMEMBER, in NSW there is no longer those “magic words” that identify a claim as a payment claim under the Act so you cannot rely on this phrase to assist you to identify whether the claim is under the Act.
• Review the status of projects and consider whether there are any potential issues and how these might be able to be addressed now.
• Ensure project representatives who go on leave direct their emails to a nominated person who is able to check them regularly.

Lastly, remember that planning makes perfect this Christmas and a truly happy New Year.

Felicity Jools

Risk Manager