Click the link for more information. A reference date needs to be identified before a payment claim is made under the Act. This date is normally easy to identify but some contracts make the easy difficult! Under a construction contract, a person who has undertaken to carry out construction work or supply related goods and services, is entitled to a progress payment on and from each reference date.
In other words, the reference date marks the particular time on or after which a claimant may issue a progress claim to a respondent. Note that while the progress claim may be issued on a date after the reference date, the entitlements of the progress claim can only be calculated to the reference date. The reference date may be determined by a term in the construction contract or if there is no express term in the construction contract then the Act defines it as the last day of the month.
If the construction contract DOES stipulate a time eg the 10th day of the month that a progress claim can be made. Sometimes a construction contract requires progress claims to be made at different stages of work. This sort of contractual provision is usually referred to as milestone payments.
Once the reference date has been identified, a progress claim can be prepared and served for work performed or related goods and services provided to that date. The Act stipulates that only one progress claim can be served in respect of each reference date under the construction contract.
However this does not prevent a claimant from including an amount in a progress claim which was part of a previous progress claim.
