Rolling the dice on payment schedules – Is it valid or not?

Piper Alderman's Sydney Construction team considers a recent security of payment decision by the Supreme Court of NSW regarding the minimum requirements for a valid payment schedule: Turnkey Innovative Engineering Pty Ltd v Witron Australia Pty Ltd [2023] NSWSC 981 (Turnkey v Witron) per Stevenson J.

Introduction

In the security of payment regime under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW) (SoP Act), the payment schedule is the respondent's opportunity to indicate the amount it proposes to pay (scheduled amount) and the reasons why that amount is less than the claimed amount. It is in a respondent's interests to serve a payment schedule, as failure to do so allows the claimant to enforce all of the claimed amount as a statutory debt by way of summary judgment.