Building and Construction: ‘From the reference date ’ means ‘on the reference date ’

Reference date

In simple terms, the 'reference date' is the date under the relevant construction contract by regard to which the contractor may serve a progress claim to its client. That may be, for example, the 25th day of each month, the last day of each month, fortnightly on the 15th and 25th of each month or upon the completion of a defined milestone. Because section 12 of the BCIP Act states that a party is entitled to a progress payment 'from the reference date', it was commonly thought that you can issue a payment claim 'on and from' the relevant reference date. For example, if the contract provided that the contractor was entitled to issue progress claims on the 25th day of each month, (because it is not possible to contract out of the BCIP Act or modify or exclude its provisions), the learned view was that a party could issue a payment claim on any day from the 25th day of the month up until the 24th day of the following month until the next reference date