Construction Adjudication in Ontario (ODACC): Cost, Timeline and When It’s Worth It

What adjudication is — and why most trades have never used it

Ontario’s Construction Act set up adjudication so payment fights on a job could be decided in weeks instead of years. It’s run through ODACC, the Ontario Dispute Adjudication for Construction Contracts. You file a notice, an adjudicator is appointed, both sides send in documents, and you get a decision the other side has to pay — now. Either side can still take the dispute to court later, but the money moves first.

In its 2025 fiscal year ODACC saw 324 adjudications, and the median claim was about $212,800. Read that number again: this tool has mostly been used by bigger players. Small trades barely touch it, and in my experience that’s mainly because nobody ever told them it exists.

What you can take to adjudication

• Payment under the contract or subcontract — including approved, unapproved and proposed change orders.
• What the work or materials were worth.
• Amounts in a notice of non-payment.
• Set-off claimed against you.
• Holdback — including whether it should have been released.
• Since 2026, scope, price changes and time extensions, where deciding them is needed to decide one of the above.
• Anything else both sides agree to put to the adjudicator.

One dispute per adjudication, unless both sides agree to more. The disputed-work-now, argue-later situation — where you were told to do a change and fight about the price afterwards — is exactly what this is for.

The 90-day window

Since January 1, 2026, you can start an adjudication up to 90 days after the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated. For a sub, the 90 days run from the earliest of that date, the date your subcontract was certified complete, or your own last supply. Before 2026 you had to start before the contract was finished, which shut a lot of final-payment and holdback fights out.

What it costs — and when it isn’t worth it

The fee is split equally unless the adjudicator orders otherwise, and each side pays its own other costs, win or lose. If the other side won’t pay its half, you may have to front it to keep things moving.

So here’s the math. On a $5,000 claim, your half of the fee comes to about $904 with HST — roughly 18% of the debt. If you end up fronting the whole thing, it’s about 36%. On a few thousand dollars, a demand letter or Small Claims usually nets you more. On $25,000 and up, owed by a company with money, adjudication starts to look very good indeed.

How it works, step by step

Realistically, six to eight weeks from notice to decision. Page limits are tight — some processes allow only a few pages each, not counting the contract and the invoice — so a clean, indexed file wins.

After the decision

• The other side has 15 days to pay (it was 10 before 2026), with interest on late amounts.
• If they don’t pay, you can suspend work until they do, and recover your reasonable costs of stopping and restarting.
• You can file the certified decision with the court within two years, and enforce it like a court order — garnishment, writs, the usual tools.
• Appeals are hard. Judicial review needs permission from the Divisional Court, on narrow grounds, and asking for it doesn’t stop the clock on paying.

Before you file on a public job

Some public owners treat an adjudication like a lawsuit under their bidding policies, and a few have been reported to keep lists of contractors who have taken them on. It shouldn’t matter, and it’s your right either way — but read the owner’s procurement policy before you file, so you’re not surprised.

Questions trades ask

Not legal advice. This is general information from an Ontario builder, current to October 2026. Your dates and rights depend on your contract and your facts — confirm them with an Ontario construction lawyer before you rely on them. Read the Construction Act on ontario.ca.

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