Is an adjudication decision final and binding?
Binding, yes: it must be complied with immediately and the courts enforce it. Final, no: the dispute can be reopened in litigation or arbitration afterwards, but the decision stands until then.
Updated: 15 September 2026. By Jack Butler-Kettle, Quantity Surveyor & Claims Consultant.
The answer
Both, in different senses. An adjudicator's decision is binding on the parties as soon as it is made and must be complied with, usually within the days the decision states; if the losing party does not pay, the courts enforce it quickly and rarely look behind it. It is not final: the same dispute can be brought again in court or arbitration, where the tribunal decides afresh, and the parties can also agree to accept the decision as final. In practice most decisions are never reopened, because the losing party pays and moves on, and where the dispute is about a notified sum the later argument is a true value dispute rather than a rerun of the notice point. The commercial consequence is that adjudication settles cash now; the legal routes to reopen it, and their prospects, are for a solicitor.
Example
The situation
An adjudicator decides on 3 October that £74,000 is payable within seven days. The payer believes the work was worth £60,000 and disagrees with the reasoning, and wants to know what it must do.
What happens
- The payer pays the £74,000 by 10 October, whatever it thinks of the reasoning.
- If it believes the work was worth £60,000, it may later refer a true value dispute or litigate.
- It argues that position with the £74,000 already paid, not withheld.
The outcome
The £74,000 is paid on time and the £60,000 argument is run afterwards as a true value dispute or in litigation, not by withholding.
Adjudication Quantum Support prepares the figures for the decision and for any true value dispute that follows.