Payment claims under the security of payment legislation can still be served during the Christmas-New Year shutdown period, thus catching out both commercial and domestic builders.

You can protect yourself from this potentially fatal situation by ensuring key staff are assigned to check your post, fax and emails on daily basis and by having the right resources on hand to respond promptly to a payment claim. Any payment claim must be met with a payment schedule within 10 business days.

Failing to follow through with this step could mean that the claim becomes automatically due and payable, as there is no defence just because an office was shut down. It is recommended that key staff be put on alert in order to avoid this situation.

For more information, contact Master Builders’ Legal Department at (03) 9411 4555. Be advised that Master Builders will close its offices from noon, Friday 21 December 2018 and will remain closed until we reopen on Wednesday, 2 January 2018.