VIC Security of Payment
Victoria's Security of Payment Act was the weakest in Australia — until the Fairer Payments on Jobsites reforms commenced on 15 April 2026. Reference dates are gone, the notorious excluded-amounts regime is repealed, payment terms are capped at 20 business days, and notice-based time bars can now be declared unfair and unenforceable. Advice written before 2026 is out of date, and so are the contracts that relied on the old Act.
Claims now arise monthly by right (s 14A) — clauses restricting when or how often you claim have no effect (s 14B), and the window after practical completion doubled to 6 months. The excluded-amounts regime (old ss 10A–10B) is repealed: variations, latent conditions, and time-related costs are claimable through the Act like anywhere else. And payment terms beyond 20 business days after a claim now have no effect (s 12(1B)).
Serve a claim stating it's under the Act; the respondent has 10 business days to serve a payment schedule; no schedule means liability for the full claimed amount, recoverable as a debt with defences barred (s 16(4)) or through adjudication. Pay-when-paid has no effect (s 13), and s 48 voids any provision that excludes, modifies, or restricts the Act or deters you from using it.
New s 13A — modelled on WA's mechanism — lets an adjudicator, court, arbitrator, or expert declare a notice-based time bar unfair, and of no effect for that entitlement, where compliance wasn't reasonably possible or would be unreasonably onerous. It covers payment, EOT, and security-release notices. It's a shield, not a licence: notice discipline still wins claims; s 13A rescues the deserving cases that miss impossible windows.
The reforms added statutory rights to claim release of performance security — retention and bank guarantees — through the Act's machinery (ss 17A–17H). What the Act still doesn't touch: LD rates and caps, indemnities, scope, and termination. Contracts drafted for old-VIC conditions are full of now-void clauses next to still-enforceable ones; a $19 review tells you which is which.
Common questions
The Building Legislation Amendment (Fairer Payments on Jobsites and Other Matters) Act 2025 commenced 15 April 2026 and rebuilt the regime: monthly payment claims replace reference dates (with clauses restricting claim timing void), the excluded-amounts regime is repealed so variations and time-related costs are claimable, payment terms beyond 20 business days have no effect, notice-based time bars can be declared unfair, and there's a new statutory path to claim release of retention and bank guarantees. It applies to existing contracts, but not to claims served before commencement.
Yes. The old excluded-amounts regime (ss 10A–10B) — which kept most disputed variations, latent conditions, and time-related costs out of adjudication and made Victoria the outlier state — was repealed effective 15 April 2026. Claimable amounts now work the way they do in the rest of Australia, which transforms how much of a real progress claim the Act can actually enforce.
By default yes, but with a new safety valve: s 13A allows an adjudicator, court, arbitrator, or expert to declare a notice-based time bar unfair — and of no effect for that entitlement — where complying wasn't reasonably possible or would be unreasonably onerous, with the onus on the party alleging unfairness. Don't rely on it as a strategy: serve notices on time, and treat s 13A as the backstop for genuinely impossible windows.
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