In Audi Construction Pte Ltd v Kian Hiap Construction Pte Ltd, the Singapore Court of Appeal_x000D_ considered a payment claim to have been validly served although it was served earlier than the contractually stipulated date. This was because the service of the payment claim was "effective" only from the contractually stipulated date, and the claimant had had a "good reason" to serve the payment claim early. This note critically examines the reasoning in Audi vis-à-vis the existing law, the principle of freedom of contract, and the intentions of the parties in that case. In the absence of future judicial elaboration on the "effective service" and "good reason" doctrines, there is a risk that, in future, respondents may draw on these doctrines to delay or frustrate the attempts of claimants to recover payments rightly due to them. Moreover, given that the Court had found that the doctrine of estoppel would have operated in favour of the Claimant anyway, the creation of the "effective service" and "good reason" principles was not necessary.