Adjudication remains the primary route for resolving construction payment disputes in the United Kingdom. A decision is enforced summarily and binds the parties until the dispute is finally determined by litigation, arbitration or agreement.

A party that wants to resist enforcement on jurisdiction has to raise the point clearly and early, and then reserve its position. A specific reservation, kept alive through the adjudication, carries far more weight than an objection produced for the first time at the enforcement hearing.

What it means for the parties

For a responding party, the practical message is to take any jurisdiction point at the outset, in writing, and to keep participating under protest rather than walking away. Silence, or late objection, tends to be treated as a waiver.

Pay now, argue later remains the rule. The decision binds until the dispute is finally resolved.

For a referring party, a clean referral that stays within the four corners of the notice of adjudication reduces the room for a challenge later. Where the adjudicator has answered the question referred and acted fairly, the courts have consistently enforced the result, even if it may be wrong on the facts or the law.