Your Legal Rights

The building and construction industry is worth around $300 billion dollars per year and employs about 10% of Australia’s labour force. But for decades, the difficulty in trying to get paid, has made it one of the most unstable and stressful industries, negatively affecting hundreds of thousands of Australian families every year.

In 1999 most state governments introduced Building and Construction Industry Security of Payments laws to prevent contractors and suppliers being ripped off by head contractors.

These laws give tradies, sub-contractors, contractors, suppliers, equipment hirers, engineers, architects, designers and consultants the right to get paid and not be stuffed around.

Some of these legal rights include:
i. The right to “on time” progress payments;
ii. The right to be paid in full;
iii. The right to be paid interest on overdue payments;
iv. The right to stop work for not being paid on time, without being penalised;
v. The right to prevent having contracts cancelled, for asserting any of the rights mentioned above, without being penalised;
vi. Head contractors must pay all suppliers and subcontractors when they invoice their client;
vii. The right to make principal contractors “hold” money (and not spend it) that is owing to tradies, sub-contractors, contractors, suppliers, equipment hirers, engineers, architects, designers and consultants.

The laws set out processes which must be followed to assert these rights.

Because it is a legal process, you must be follow it very carefully.

At BIPay, we help tradies, sub-contractors, contractors, suppliers, engineers, architects and designers follow these processes, and get paid faster.