Allen Wilson Shopfitters v Buckingham

A contractual adjudication agreement remains effective for disputes concerning instructed variations and additional work where the underlying contract incorporates adjudication provisions, even though the work falls outside the original lump-sum items. An adjudicator’s decision is enforceable if the dispute referred falls within the adjudicator’s jurisdiction. Errors concerning the contractual payment mechanism, including the mistaken use of a statutory scheme, are errors within jurisdiction and do not justify resisting enforcement. Termination does not extinguish accrued contractual rights. An adjudication agreement is not unfair merely because the employer is a consumer where the terms were provided by the employer’s professional agents and the agreement causes no relevant lack of good faith or significant imbalance.

The claimant contractor sought summary judgment to enforce an adjudicator’s decision awarding £50,401.35 for unpaid interim valuations arising from building works at the defendant’s property. The defendant challenged jurisdiction on the grounds that there was no applicable written contract, the relevant works were outside the first letter of intent, the contract had ended, the residential occupier exclusion applied, and the adjudication agreement was unfair under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

The central issues were whether the first letter of intent incorporated the JCT adjudication provisions for additional work, whether the adjudicator’s choice of payment mechanism affected jurisdiction, and whether any of the defendant’s jurisdictional objections prevented enforcement.

1. Summary judgment granted. The adjudicator had jurisdiction, and the claimant was awarded the sums decided by the adjudicator, interest, the RICS nomination fee and adjudicator’s fees.
2. The first letter of intent, signed by the claimant, incorporated the JCT 1998 terms, including the provisions concerning variations, additional work and adjudication. The second letter of intent was deliberately unsigned and had no contractual significance.
3. The works in Valuations 12 and 13 were instructed as additional or varied work under Clause 13 of the incorporated JCT terms. They were therefore performed under a contract containing an express agreement to adjudicate. The absence of a later lump-sum agreement did not affect that conclusion.
4. Following C&B Scene Concept Design Limited v Isobars Limited [2002] E.W.C.A. Civ.46, jurisdiction depends on the dispute referred. An adjudicator’s error of law in selecting or construing the applicable payment machinery does not deprive the adjudicator of jurisdiction where the issue decided falls within the referred dispute.
5. The contract and its payment machinery continued to operate after the contract administrator’s employment ended. Alternatively, if the statutory payment scheme was required to fill a gap, the defendant could not rely on the residential occupier exclusion after failing to provide a replacement contract administrator, since a party cannot take advantage of its own breach: Croudace v Lambeth [1986] 33 B.L.R. 20.
6. The property was a residence for the purposes of section 106(1)(a) of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. That exclusion would have applied if jurisdiction had derived from the Act, but jurisdiction derived from the contract.
7. The contract’s adjudication agreement was not unfair. Applying Westminster Building Company Limited v Beckingham [2004] B.L.R. 163 and adopting the reasoning in Bryen & Langley Limited v Martin Rodney Boston [2004] E.W.H.C. 2450, the relevant terms had been put forward by the defendant’s professional agents and there was no sufficient lack of good faith or significant imbalance.
8. The termination argument was also rejected. Even if the contract had ended, accrued rights and liabilities, including the claimant’s entitlement concerning the valuations, remained capable of determination by the adjudicator.

First-instance decision. No prior appellate decision is stated in the judgment.