Mykra Pty Ltd v All State Maintenance Pty Ltd [2014] SADC 149

The plaintiff served a ‘payment claim’ on the defendant pursuant to the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2009 (SA). Unless the recipient responds with a ‘payment schedule’ setting out what it does and does not dispute, and why, a plaintiff is entitled to summary judgement for the amount of its payment claim. In this way the Act provides a quick and summary process to enable contractors to secure progress payments under building and construction contracts. The defendant responded to the plaintiff’s payment claim by email referring to an earlier schedule it had sent denying aspects of the payment claim and agreeing to make some payment.  The issue was whether this response amounted to a valid responding payment schedule.

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