Prompt payment and adjudication timelines, and what they do to a delay claim

01 Where the regime sits, and the two amendment waves

Ontario's prompt payment and adjudication regime is in the Construction Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.30. The regime was added by the Construction Lien Amendment Act, 2017, S.O. 2017, c. 24, which also renamed the statute from the Construction Lien Act. Part I.1 (Prompt Payment) and Part II.1 (Construction Dispute Interim Adjudication) came into force on October 1, 2019.

Both Parts were amended by Schedule 4 to the Building Ontario For You Act (Budget Measures), 2024, S.O. 2024, c. 20 (Bill 216, assented to November 6, 2024) and by Schedule 2 to the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025, S.O. 2025, c. 14 (Bill 60, assented to November 27, 2025). Those amendments came into force on January 1, 2026.

The practical consequence is that there are now two vintages of received wisdom about this regime in circulation. Anything written about prompt payment or adjudication before 2026, including internal precedent memoranda and the standard notice templates sitting in most document management systems, was written against the pre-2026 text. Some of it is still right. None of it should be relied on without being read against the current consolidation, because the amendments touched both the invoice machinery and the adjudication machinery rather than only one of them.

02 The payment clocks

Payment timelines under Part I.1 of the Construction Act:

1. An owner pays the amount payable under a proper invoice no later than 28 days after receiving it from the contractor (s. 6.4(1)).
2. A contractor who receives full payment pays each subcontractor whose services or materials were included in that proper invoice no later than 7 days after receiving payment (s. 6.5(1)). The same 7 days applies on partial payment, out of the amount received (s. 6.5(2)).
3. If the owner does not pay some or all of the proper invoice, the contractor must still pay the affected subcontractors no later than 35 days after giving the proper invoice to the owner, unless it gives a notice of non-payment (s. 6.5(4)).
4. A subcontractor who receives payment pays its own subcontractors no later than 7 days after receiving it (s. 6.6(1)).

Read as a chain, this is a pay-or-explain structure with a very short fuse at every link. The contractor's exposure in item 3 is the one that decides behaviour on site. A contractor that is not paid and does not give a notice of non-payment is funding the subcontract chain out of its own working capital from day 35, which is why non-payment notices get issued in volume and often without much thought about what they will look like later in a dispute.

03 The proper invoice deeming rule, new since January 1, 2026

An invoice that does not meet the proper invoice requirements is deemed to be a proper invoice unless the owner notifies the contractor in writing of the deficiency, and of what is required to address it, no later than 7 days after receiving the invoice (s. 6.1(2)). This deeming rule is new and has applied only since January 1, 2026.

This is a bigger change than it looks. Before it, the standard answer to a prompt payment complaint was that the clock had never started because the invoice was not a proper invoice, and that answer could be raised at leisure. Now the owner has to say so within 7 days, in writing, and has to say what would fix it. Silence converts a defective invoice into a proper one and starts the 28 days.

For a contractor pursuing time-related money, that matters because prolongation amounts are exactly the sort of item an owner would prefer to characterise as unsupported and therefore outside a proper invoice. The 7 day window forces the objection into the open, on a date, with particulars. That is a better record to work from than a general refusal.

04 Notices of non-payment, and the undertaking that forces the pace

Notice of non-payment deadlines under Part I.1:

1. Owner to contractor: no later than 14 days after receiving the proper invoice, in the prescribed form and manner, specifying the amount not being paid and detailing all of the reasons for non-payment (s. 6.4(2)).
2. Contractor to subcontractor: no later than 7 days after receiving the owner's notice of non-payment, or, if the owner gave no notice, before the 35-day period in s. 6.5(4) expires (s. 6.5(7)).
3. Where the contractor's notice is based on the owner's non-payment, it must include an undertaking to refer the matter to adjudication under Part II.1 no later than 21 days after giving the notice to the subcontractor, and a copy of any notice of non-payment the owner gave (s. 6.5(5)).

Item 1 is the most useful single document in a delay dispute that most people treat as a form. The owner must detail all of the reasons for non-payment. That is a dated, particularised statement of the owner's theory of the dispute, produced before anyone has had time to think about litigation strategy. Where the reasons are silent on time, or blame something the as-built record contradicts, that silence and that inconsistency are fixed in the record from that date.

Item 3 is where the timetable stops being administrative. A contractor that passes non-payment down the chain on the basis of the owner's non-payment has committed itself to refer the matter to adjudication within 21 days of that notice. In practice this means the decision to adjudicate is made weeks before anyone has assembled a claim, and the analysis then has to catch up to a commitment that has already been given.

05 The adjudication timetable

Adjudication timelines under Part II.1 of the Construction Act:

1. A notice of adjudication on a contract cannot be given more than 90 days after the date the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated, unless the parties to the adjudication agree otherwise (s. 13.5(3)). For a subcontract, the 90 days runs from the earliest of that date, the date the subcontract is certified complete under s. 33, and the date the subcontractor last supplied services or materials to the improvement (s. 13.5(3.1)).
2. The notice of adjudication must name a proposed adjudicator and contain the other information set out in s. 13.7(1).
3. If the registry adjudicator the parties agreed on does not consent to act within 4 days after the notice of adjudication is given, the party who gave the notice must ask the Authorized Nominating Authority to appoint one (s. 13.9(4)).
4. The Authority appoints a registry adjudicator, subject to that person's consent, no later than 7 days after receiving the request (s. 13.9(5)).
5. The party who gave the notice provides the adjudicator with a copy of the notice, and provides the adjudicator and the other party with the contract or subcontract and the documents it intends to rely on, no later than 5 days after the adjudicator agrees or is appointed to act (s. 13.11).
6. The adjudicator must determine the matter no later than 30 days after receiving the documents required by s. 13.11 (s. 13.13(1)).
7. That deadline can be extended by no more than 14 days on the adjudicator's request with the written consent of the parties, or by whatever period the parties agree to in writing subject to the adjudicator's consent (s. 13.13(2)).
8. A determination made after the deadline is of no force or effect (s. 13.13(5)), and the determination must be in writing with reasons (s. 13.13(6)).

Ontario Dispute Adjudication for Construction Contracts (ODACC) is the Authorized Nominating Authority under the Act.

Two features of this list deserve more attention than they usually get. The first is item 5. The document set that decides the adjudication is fixed no later than 5 days after the adjudicator is appointed, and it consists of the contract and the documents the referring party intends to rely on. There is no disclosure phase, no exchange of expert reports on a timetable, and no realistic opportunity to develop an analysis after the process starts. The second is item 8. A late determination has no force or effect, which means the adjudicator has a hard reason to refuse to absorb material that arrives late or that takes a long time to digest.

06 What the timetable does to a delay claim

The 90 day bar makes adjudication a live-project remedy

A notice of adjudication on a contract cannot be given more than 90 days after the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated, absent agreement. Delay claims do not naturally mature on that schedule. The usual sequence is that the effect of an event becomes visible at the completion milestone late in the job, the parties argue about it during closeout, and the claim is assembled once the as-built record is complete. By then the adjudication window is either closing or shut, and the remedy that remains is arbitration or an action.

The subcontract rule in s. 13.5(3.1) is tighter again, because it runs from the earliest of three dates, one of which is the date the subcontractor last supplied services or materials. A subcontractor who finished its scope early in the job and then waited for the general contractor's claim to resolve may have lost the adjudication route long before the project ends.

The arithmetic, and what it leaves room for

Run the steps in order. Notice of adjudication is given. Up to 4 days for the agreed registry adjudicator to consent or fail to consent. Up to 7 days for the Authority to appoint after a request. Then 5 days to deliver the contract and the documents relied on. Then 30 days to determination, extendable by no more than 14 days with written consent, or by an agreed period with the adjudicator's consent. An ordinary contested case therefore runs roughly six weeks from notice to determination, with the evidentiary record locked in the first two.

Thirty days will not absorb a full retrospective analysis across a dozen schedule updates with a concurrency assessment and an apportionment argument. What fits is narrower and, in my view, better:

• One event, or a small set of related events, identified by date and by the document that proves it happened.
• The schedule update that was in force immediately before the event, taken as found rather than rebuilt.
• The effect of that event on the update, shown as a change in the date of a contractual milestone.
• The measurement stated in working days on the calendar the contract actually uses, with the calendar identified.
• An express statement of what the analysis does not establish, including any part of the slippage that the event does not explain.

Everything else is background and should be in an appendix or left out. The discipline that the timetable imposes is useful even where the dispute is heading to court anyway, because it forces the analyst to name the driving event and to date it, which is the part of a delay claim that is most often left vague.

Answer the notice of non-payment, item by item

The owner's notice under s. 6.4(2) must specify the amount not being paid and detail all of the reasons. That is the closest thing to a pleading the regime produces, and it is produced early. A delay analysis that is organised to answer those reasons in the order they were given is more persuasive to an adjudicator working under a 30 day deadline than one organised around the analyst's preferred narrative. Where a reason has no time dimension at all, say so, because that is an admission about what the dispute was really about at the time.

What I am not saying

I have set out the timetable, not the scope of the remedy. Whether a particular delay or prolongation claim is a matter that may be referred under Part II.1, and what a determination does once it is made, including the provisions on compliance, enforcement and review, are separate questions that need to be read in the current consolidation on the facts of the file. I have deliberately not summarised them here, because a compressed summary of those provisions is exactly the kind of thing that gets relied on when it should not be.

07 Clocks that run at the same time

The adjudication and payment clocks do not displace the limitation and lien clocks. On a file with a time claim, all of them are running while the parties argue about the schedule.

The general limitation period is set by the Limitations Act, 2002, S.O. 2002, c. 24, Schedule B. Section 4 sets the basic limitation period: unless the Act provides otherwise, a proceeding shall not be commenced in respect of a claim after the second anniversary of the day on which the claim was discovered. Section 5(1) fixes discovery at the earlier of the day the claimant first knew that the injury, loss or damage had occurred, that it was caused by or contributed to by an act or omission, that the act or omission was that of the person against whom the claim is made, and that a proceeding would be an appropriate means to seek to remedy it, and the day a reasonable person with the claimant's abilities and in the claimant's circumstances first ought to have known those things. Section 5(2) presumes the claimant knew those matters on the day the act or omission took place unless the contrary is proved. Section 15(2) adds an ultimate limitation period barring any proceeding after the fifteenth anniversary of the day the act or omission took place.

Construction lien deadlines are separate from the Limitations Act, 2002 and much shorter. Under the Construction Act, a contractor's lien for services or materials supplied on or before the certified or declared date of substantial performance expires at the end of the 60-day period following the earlier of the day a copy of the certificate or declaration of substantial performance is published under s. 32 and the day the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated (s. 31(2)(a)). Where there is no certification or declaration of substantial performance, or for services or materials supplied after that date, the 60 days runs from the earlier of the day the contract is completed and the day it is abandoned or terminated (s. 31(2)(b)). A preserved lien expires unless it is perfected before the end of the 90-day period following the last day on which the lien could have been preserved (s. 36(2)).

The table below is a navigation aid to the periods set out in full in the sections above. It is not a substitute for the wording, and it does not resolve how the periods interact on any particular file.

12 rows, complete. Periods only. No extension, suspension or transitional provision is shown.

08 What is uncertain, and what I have not verified

• No case law is cited here. There is a growing body of Ontario decisions on this regime, and none of it has been verified for this note, so none of it is named. A general statement with no citation is better than a specific one that turns out to be wrong.
• I have not addressed transitional questions arising from the January 1, 2026 amendments. On a contract entered into before that date, which text governs which step is a real question and it needs to be answered from the amending Schedules themselves.
• I have not addressed the effect, enforcement or review of a determination, or the provisions on adjudication costs and fees.
• Whether an adjudicator will engage with expert schedule evidence at all, and in what form, is a practical unknown that varies with the adjudicator and the matter. Nothing in the timetable requires an adjudicator to read a long report, and the 30 day deadline is a reason not to.
• Whether commencing an adjudication affects the running of a limitation period is a legal question I do not answer. Assume it does not, and diarise accordingly.
• Contract terms can and do modify the payment machinery in practice, through invoice procedures, certification requirements and dispute clauses. The statutory periods are the floor. Read the contract.

09 Practical points

1. Date every step already taken on the file and identify which text governed it. The transition is January 1, 2026.
2. Build the invoice register before building the delay analysis. Delivery dates, deficiency notices, non-payment notices, payments.
3. Read the whole non-payment notice series, both directions, before writing the delay narrative. Inconsistencies found later are found by the other side.
4. Treat the owner's s. 6.4(2) reasons as the pleading, and organise the analysis to answer them in their own order.
5. Where a notice of non-payment based on the owner's non-payment is going down the chain, have the subcontract time position ready before it is issued, because the 21 day undertaking follows.
6. Decide early whether adjudication is part of the strategy. If it is, adjudicate events as they mature rather than packaging one claim at the end.
7. For each adjudication, one event, the update in force before it, one measured effect on a contractual milestone, and a stated limit on what the analysis proves.
8. State the calendar used, and prove it matches the contract, before quoting any number of days.
9. Finish the analysis before the notice of adjudication. The document set closes 5 days after appointment.
10. Keep the lien and limitation diary running independently of the payment and adjudication steps.