SHOP-FITTING CONTRACTS HELD NOT TO BE ‘CONSTRUCTION OPERATIONS’

Gibson Lea Retail Interiors Ltd v Makro Self Service Wholesalers Ltd ([2001] BLR 407)

In Gibson Lea Retail Interiors Ltd v Makro Self Service Wholesalers Ltd [2001] BLR 407 His Honour Judge Seymour QC concluded that the effect of using the words ‘forming, or to form, part of the land’ in the definition of ‘construction operations’ in s105(1)(a) of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 was to import into that sub-section ‘the concepts and tests of the law relating to fixtures as found in the law of real property’. He therefore concluded that four contracts for the supply and installation of shop-fittings were not ‘construction operations’ with the result that the contracts were not ‘construction contracts’ so that the adjudication provisions in the 1996 Act were not applicable to the contracts between the parties. Given the relative economic significance of shop-fitting contracts, this is a conclusion of some importance and its effect is to take such contracts largely, if not entirely, outside the scope of the 1996 Act.