A referral has landed and we don't know how the 28 days runs

For most businesses the first adjudication arrives unannounced: a referral in the inbox, a dispute you thought was still being argued by email, and a process nobody in the building has run before. The other side has had as long as they wanted to prepare it. You get days. And the first question everyone asks is the right one: what has to happen, by when.

The backbone is set by the Construction Act: the adjudicator's decision is normally due twenty-eight days from the referral, extendable by up to fourteen more with the referring party's consent, and longer only if both sides agree. Inside that shell the adjudicator directs the rest: when your response lands, whether there is a further round, what happens to late material. Those dates run from service, and missing one does not pause anything.

Adjudicators decide on the documents in front of them, served in time. Material that arrives late risks simply not being considered, however good it is. So the first move is not drafting; it is mapping every date on one page and building the response to fit them. And where arguments about jurisdiction or enforcing the decision start, that is a solicitor's territory, engaged early, because the timetable keeps running while you find one.

If you would rather it were done for you, Adjudication Support & Claims Preparation is the service that does it.