A bill to promote the prompt payment for labor, materials, and services provided for the improvement of real property in the private contractual construction industry; to provide for certain contract provisions; and to provide for certain remedies and penalties.
The bill would enact the "Construction Payments Act" to do the following: -- Prescribe provisions that each construction contract awarded by an owner to a contractor would have to include. -- Prescribe provisions that each construction contract awarded by a contractor to a subcontractor or supplier would have to include. -- Require an owner or contractor to provide notice to a contractor, subcontractor, or supplier, as applicable, as to why all or a portion of a payment was being withheld within 10 days after receiving the disputed invoice. -- Require an owner to pay a contractor strictly in accordance with the terms of the contract. -- Prescribe procedures if payment terms were not specified in a contract, including terms about retainage. -- Prescribe circumstances under which a provision in a contract for a construction would be against public policy and would be void and unenforceable. -- Specify that the Act would apply only to private commercial construction projects and would not apply to public works contracts and certain residential contracts. -- Require a court or arbitrator to award damages due equal to the amount that was determined by the court or arbitrator to have been wrongfully withheld if arbitration or litigation were commenced to recover payment due and it were determined that the owner, contractor, or subcontractor had failed to comply with the payment terms described in the Act. -- Require a court or arbitrator to award the prevailing party its reasonable attorney fees, arbitration costs, and expenses for expert witnesses.
Introduced
by
Referred to the Committee on Labor
