The NEC contracts require that notification of a dispute and submission of information to the Adjudicator be done within tight time frames.
If an Adjudicator has not already been appointed or cannot be appointed very quickly when a dispute is notified, the time frames will probably not be met.
An Adjudicator should ideally be appointed at the same time as the contract between the Parties is awarded. If this is not done and the Parties cannot subsequently agree after award on the person to be appointed or cannot agree on a new adjudicator should one be required, there is a fall back reference to an adjudicator nominating body to select an adjudicator.
The ICE-SA Panel of NEC Adjudicators has been established to facilitate the timeous appointment of adjudicators using one of two methods. (See Using the ICE-SA Panel of NEC Adjudicators)
The standard payment option provided in the NEC3 Adjudicators Contract is for the Parties referring the matter to dispute to pay the Adjudicator an advance payment that is stated in the Contract Data and to share any amount due in equal proportions.
To enable consolidation of related disputes across the whole project it may be appropriate for the main contract to specify that the subcontract terms should name the same adjudicator as also acting in subcontract disputes.