VIC’s Security of Payment regime is set by the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002 (Vic). This is a short, plain-English orientation — not legal advice, and not a substitute for the Act itself or qualified advice.
The lead Act in VIC
In VIC, progress-payment rights are governed by the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2002 (Vic).
- Victoria’s Act follows the East Coast payment-claim / payment-schedule / adjudication structure.
- It has some distinctive features — such as “excluded amounts” and limits on claimable variations — that can make claims more technical than in NSW.
- Because those features affect what you can validly claim, confirming the current Act (or getting advice) matters more here than a generic template suggests.
The process, in short
Like the rest of the East Coast model, the process runs from a payment claim, to a payment schedule in reply, to adjudication if the claim is short-paid or unanswered, and then to enforcement of the adjudicated amount. The specific timeframes and requirements are set by this state’s Act — each is a defined number of business days that varies by jurisdiction, so confirm the current Act rather than relying on a number from elsewhere.
Where it leaves trades exposed
The statutory right is powerful but reactive: you invoke it after the work is done and the money is already at risk, on strict timeframes, and a winning determination is worth little if the payer is insolvent. Milestone escrow addresses the same problem from the other end — ring-fencing each stage’s payment before the work starts. It complements the statutory regime; it does not replace it.