Payment under the Construction Act: Current Case Law

Nicholas Gould

October 2008

A paper presented to the Centre of Construction Law and Society of Construction Law conference at King's College London on 11th September 2008.

In the light of the draft Construction Contracts Bill published in July 2008, how do the existing payment provisions of Part II of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act work, and what problems have been revealed in the case law to which they have given rise? Nicholas Gould considers sections 109-113 of the 1996 Act through the abundant case law, in both England & Wales and Scotland, giving a starting-point for understanding the proposed statutory changes, which the paper lays out, integrated with the present provisions, in its Appendix.

Introduction - Statutory payment provisions: background - The right to payment by instalments - The requirement for an adequate mechanism, and payment notices - Withholding notices - The right to suspend performance - Prohibition of conditional payment provisions - Appendix.

The author: BSc(Hons), LLM(Lond), FRICS, FCIArb, MCIOB is a partner of Fenwick Elliott LLP Solicitors, a CEDR Lead Mediator, Registered Adjudicator, Chartered Surveyor, and Senior Research Fellow at King's College London.

38 pages (including Appendix)
PDF file size: 290k