Tilers Owed Money: Your Step-by-Step Recovery Plan

You’ve finished the job. The tiling looks perfect. The site manager signed off. But the money hasn’t hit your bank account—and it’s been weeks.

If you’re a tiler or subcontractor owed money in Australia, you’re not helpless. The Security of Payment legislation in your state exists specifically to give tradies a fast, practical way to recover what they’re owed. You don’t need to wait months for court or hope a builder remembers to pay. This is your step-by-step recovery plan.

Step 1: Check Your Right to Claim

First things first: you need to have performed work or supplied materials on a construction project. That covers almost every tiler and subcontractor in Australia.

The Security of Payment Acts exist in every state and territory:

• NSW: Security of Payment Act 1999
• Queensland: Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017
• Victoria: Security of Payment Act 2002
• South Australia: Security of Payment Act 2009
• Western Australia: Construction Contracts Act 2004
• Tasmania: Security of Payment Act 2009
• ACT: Security of Payment Act 2009
• NT: Security of Payment Act 2009

These laws apply to residential and commercial construction. If you’ve done work on a building project and invoiced for it, you have rights under the Act in your state.

Step 2: Send a Formal Payment Claim (If You Haven’t Already)

This is critical. A payment claim under your state’s SOP Act is different from a normal invoice. It triggers legal obligations on the person who owes you money—the “respondent”—to respond within a set timeframe.

Your payment claim needs to:

1. Identify the work you’ve done or materials you’ve supplied
2. State the amount you’re claiming (in AUD)
3. Reference the contract or project
4. Clearly state it’s a claim under the relevant Security of Payment Act
5. Include your contact details

The respondent then has a statutory window to respond. Under the NSW SOP Act 1999, for example, they have 10 business days to issue a payment schedule (accepting the claim, rejecting it, or proposing a lesser amount). Other states have similar timeframes—usually 7 to 10 business days.

If they don’t respond within that window and don’t pay, you move to the next step.

Step 3: Understand Fast-Track Adjudication

This is where the SOP Acts really protect you. If the respondent ignores your claim or rejects it without good reason, you can apply for fast-track adjudication—a quick, binding decision from an independent adjudicator.

Fast-track adjudication isn’t a court case. It’s streamlined, designed for construction disputes, and it happens fast (usually within 14 days of your application in most states). The adjudicator reviews your claim and the respondent’s response, then issues a determination.

The respondent can challenge the determination later, but in the meantime, they have to pay you. Many debtors choose to pay or settle rather than face fast-track adjudication because the process is designed to move quickly and the cost of disputing it often outweighs the benefit.

Step 4: File Your Claim Properly

This is where most tradies stumble. The forms, timelines, and wording matter. If you get it wrong, your claim can be rejected on a technicality—even if the money is genuinely owed.

You can draft a claim yourself, but it’s easy to miss details that the legislation requires. That’s why many subcontractors use a payment claim service like PayClaim. For a flat fee of AUD $79, you get a properly formatted, compliant claim that’s ready to serve. No hidden costs, no percentage cuts. It saves you the headache of getting it wrong and having to start again.

Once your claim is filed and served on the respondent, the clock starts ticking on their obligation to respond.

Step 5: Keep Records and Stay Professional

From today onwards:

• Keep copies of all invoices, contracts, and correspondence
• Document the work completed (dates, photos, site notes)
• Keep evidence of delivery (delivery dockets, signed-off schedules)
• Save all emails and messages from the head contractor or builder

If you end up in adjudication, this evidence is your ammunition. The adjudicator needs to see that you actually did the work and that you’ve made a fair claim for it.

And keep your tone professional in all communication. You want the paper trail to show you’ve been reasonable and the respondent has been difficult—not the other way around.

The Reality Check

You won’t get paid the moment you file a claim. There’s a process, and it takes time. But here’s what changes: the respondent’s behaviour often does. Once they know you’re serious—that you understand your rights under the SOP Act and you’re prepared to use them—many choose to settle or pay rather than defend a claim they’re unlikely to win.

If they still don’t pay after adjudication, you’ve got an adjudication determination in your favour. That’s a powerful document. It gives you grounds to pursue recovery through debt collection, or to withhold your own payments on future jobs with that builder.

You’ve earned the money. The law is designed to help you get it. Don’t let late payers think you’ll just wait forever.