The notice most claimants miss — and why Victoria gives you half the time

Here is a sequence that ends badly more often than it should.

You serve a payment claim. Nothing comes back — no payment schedule, no payment, no response at all. The due date passes. You apply for adjudication.

In New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, that application is invalid.

Where a respondent has given no payment schedule, those six jurisdictions require the claimant to serve a notice of intention to apply for adjudication first, and to give the respondent a further short window to provide a schedule. Skip it and the application fails — not on the merits, but because a precondition was not met.

Only Queensland and the Northern Territory have no such step.

The two-step in each jurisdiction

Two rows in that table are drafted differently from the rest, and the difference matters.

The ACT clock can start early. Section 19(3)(d) runs its 10 business days from the earlier of the end of the respondent's 5-day window or the day a payment schedule actually arrives. If the respondent answers on day two, three of the days you were counting on have gone.

Western Australia does not measure from the respondent's window at all. Section 28(4) gives 20 business days from when the claimant first becomes entitled to make the application. It is a different construction from the other four, and the WA row should not be read as "20 days after the 5-day period ends".

Victoria is the trap

Five jurisdictions give you 20 business days to serve the notice. Victoria gives you 10.

And Victoria then gives you 5 business days to lodge the application after the respondent's window closes, where New South Wales, Tasmania and the ACT give 10.

A contractor working across the New South Wales-Victoria border, carrying a single internal process built on 20 days, will be out of time in Victoria while still believing the deadline is a fortnight away.

What the notice has to do

The provisions differ in detail, but the substance is consistent. The notice tells the respondent two things:

1. That you intend to apply for adjudication of the payment claim
2. That the respondent may provide a payment schedule within 5 business days of receiving the notice

Victoria requires the notice to be in the prescribed form, if any is prescribed — section 18(2). Check whether a form is prescribed before drafting your own.

Western Australia makes the consequence explicit at section 28(3): giving the respondent a further opportunity to provide a payment schedule does not extend the due date for the progress payment. The clock on everything else keeps running.

South Australia is the mirror image at the other end: 20 business days for the notice, like most, but then 15 business days to lodge, where NSW, Tasmania and the ACT give 10 and Victoria gives 5.

Two jurisdictions with no notice step

Queensland has no notice of intention requirement. Under section 79(2)(b) of the BIF Act, a claimant who received no payment schedule applies directly, within 30 business days after the later of the due date or the last day the respondent could have given a schedule.

The Northern Territory operates a different regime entirely and does not use the payment claim / payment schedule structure at all.

So the answer to "do I need to serve a notice first?" is jurisdiction-dependent, and the answer is different in three directions.

Why claimants miss it

Three reasons, all avoidable.

It only applies when nothing came back. If the respondent serves a payment schedule, there is no notice step — you apply directly within the applicable window. The notice requirement sits on the path most claimants use least often, so it is the path their process covers worst.

The silence feels like the end of the matter. A respondent who ignores a claim entirely looks like a respondent with no defence. It is counterintuitive that the Act then requires you to prompt them again.

Border-crossing templates. A process built for one state and carried into another is the most common way the Victorian 10-day window gets missed.

What to do

1. Diarise the due date first, then the notice deadline from it — in business days, using the correct state's public holidays.
2. Check whether a form is prescribed in your jurisdiction before drafting.
3. Keep proof of service of the notice. It is a precondition to a valid application, so it will be the first thing challenged.
4. Do not assume your standard process travels. If you work in more than one state, the notice step is where cross-border processes fail.

Published 22 September 2026 · Updated 23 September 2026