A construction adjudication in Ontario can go from notice to a binding Determination in about six weeks. The parties who lose aren't the ones with the weaker case — they're the ones who started preparing after the clock had already begun.
Key takeaways
Adjudication is a fast, interim-binding dispute resolution process built into the Construction Act specifically for construction payment disputes, and it runs on a legislated timeline considerably quicker than ordinary litigation. It commences when the Claimant delivers a Notice of Adjudication to the Respondent — and is most useful for resolving cash-flow disputes during an active project, with court litigation still the route to a final, permanent resolution if either side wants to revisit the outcome later.
The right to start one doesn't depend on agreement. Once a Notice of Adjudication is delivered, the process is underway regardless of whether the other party wants to participate — which is exactly why preparation has to start before the notice goes out, not after. It's also a separate route from registering and perfecting a lien against the property — a claimant doesn't have to choose one over the other, and adjudication doesn't require touching title at all.
If the parties have agreed on a Registry Adjudicator in advance and that adjudicator does not consent within four days of the notice, the claimant must request that ODACC's Authority appoint one instead; the Authority then has to make that appointment, subject to consent, no later than seven days after the request. From there, the claimant's supporting documents are due no later than five days after the adjudicator agrees or is appointed.
The Adjudicator then has 30 days from the day those documents are submitted to make a Determination — extendable only with everyone's consent, including the adjudicator's — and ODACC certifies the Determination within a further seven days of it being issued to the parties. Run end to end with no delays, that puts a Determination roughly six to seven weeks after the original notice.
Because the claimant's documents are due only five days after an adjudicator is in place, the underlying file — the contract, the disputed invoices, correspondence on the disputed items, and any notice of non-payment already exchanged over the disputed amount — needs to already be assembled before the Notice of Adjudication is delivered, not started once the clock is running. A private adjudicator can be used instead of the default registry process, but only where there is a signed written agreement disclosing the terms and fee, and the adjudicator fee has to amount to at least $1,000.00 an hour, regardless of how it's billed, under O. Reg. 264/25.
ODACC even defines the physical format submissions have to follow, which is worth confirming before the five-day document window opens rather than during it: a “Page” is defined as a sheet of letter-sized paper using 12-point font, double-spaced, with normal margins, containing either written text or up to four photographs, or a combination. Where a page-count limit applies to a submission, that's the unit it's measured in — a detail that changes how a claimant should lay out photo evidence next to written argument.
ODACC's fee schedule, approved by the Attorney General effective 1 October 2025, applies where the parties and the adjudicator can't agree a fee: $1,300.00 for claims under $10,000.00, rising in bands to an hourly rate of $850.00 for claims over $1,000,000.00, plus applicable tax. Below that scale, on a claim between $25,000.00 and $34,999.00 the fee is a flat $2,700.00.
The parties split the adjudication fee equally by default, and each side is responsible for its own costs regardless of the outcome — win or lose, a party generally doesn't recover its own legal or preparation costs from the other side. The one exception is bad faith: an adjudicator can shift costs where a party has acted in a way that is frivolous, vexatious, an abuse of process, or otherwise not in good faith.
If the Adjudicator orders one party to pay the other, that payment is due within fifteen days of the Determination being issued — a hard deadline separate from the 30-day decision timeline itself. Because adjudication is interim-binding, the losing party can still pursue the underlying dispute through litigation afterward, but the payment obligation created by the Determination applies in the meantime.
Alberta runs adjudication under its own Prompt Payment and Construction Lien Act, through two nominating authorities, ARCANA and ADACC, with adjudicator certificates issued for up to three years and renewable. Section 33.4(2) sets its own limitation: an adjudication generally can't be commenced more than 30 days after the date of final payment under the contract or subcontract, unless the parties agree otherwise — a different trigger and window from Ontario's process, not a mirror of it.
A worked example
A subcontractor with a $42,000.00 unpaid balance delivers a Notice of Adjudication on a Monday. The parties agree on a Registry Adjudicator by Thursday of that week, well inside the four-day consent window, so no Authority appointment is needed.
The subcontractor's supporting documents — already assembled before the notice went out — are due the following Tuesday, five days after the adjudicator's consent. Because the claim falls between $25,000.00 and $34,999.00, the applicable fee band is a flat $2,700.00 if the parties can't agree a fee, split equally unless the adjudicator orders otherwise. A Determination is due within 30 days of the document submission, and if it orders payment, that payment is due within a further 15 days — putting money in the subcontractor's account roughly seven weeks after the original notice, months faster than a comparable court claim.
No. Adjudication is available as a right — a party can commence one without the other side's consent, and the process moves forward on the legislated timeline regardless.
No, it's interim-binding. It resolves the cash-flow dispute during an active project, but litigation remains available for either party seeking a final, permanent resolution afterward.
It depends on the size of the claim. ODACC's fee schedule runs from $1,300.00 on claims under $10,000.00 up to an hourly rate of $850.00 on claims over $1,000,000.00, split equally by default, plus each side's own costs, which aren't recoverable from the other party absent bad faith.
No. Alberta runs its own system through ARCANA and ADACC, and sets its own commencement limit of 30 days after final payment — a genuinely different regime, not a copy of Ontario's ODACC timeline.
A letter-sized sheet in 12-point double-spaced font, containing either text or up to four photographs, or a mix of both. Knowing that unit before assembling submissions changes how much photo evidence can realistically fit inside a page-limited claimant's document.
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