MANOR CO-LIVING LTD v RY CONSTRUCTION LTD

[2022] EWHC 2715 (TCC), Technology and Construction Court, Mr Adam Constable KC sitting as a Judge of the High Court, 27 October 2022

Adjudication – Principles of natural justice – Whether adjudicator deprived the claimant of potential defence

The parties entered into a construction contract under which the defendant agreed to carry out works to property owned by the claimant. The contract sum was in excess of £2 million. On 11 November 2021 the Contract Administrator served a default notice by email on the defendant in which it identified a number of defects and warned the defendant of the claimant’s intention to terminate the contract if these defects were not remedied within 14 days. The email was not sent in hard copy until 17 November and the defendant did not receive the letter by post until 19 November. In a letter dated 30 November, and which was sent by email on 1 December, the Contract Administrator informed the defendant that, as a result of its failure to proceed regularly and diligently and its failure to remedy the defects of which it had been notified, the claimant was terminating the contract in accordance with clause 8.4.2. of the contract. The defendant responded to the effect that the claimant had not complied with the requirements of clause 8.4.2 in that the notice had been given by the wrong party and had not been sent in the prescribed form within the required timeframe.