Legal Comment – Page 98
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CommentWhat’s yours is mine
A retention may be held by an employer, but the money does not belong to it. This inconvenient fact is often overlooked by clients and main contractors – it’s so good for business, you see
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CommentThe £40,000 fix
Here’s a chilling tale from the year gone by. It’s about what happened when a subcontractor on a fixed-price contract was asked not to do some of the work it tendered for – but had to be paid for it all the same
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CommentWhat it all comes down to
How do we decide what is a reasonable extension of time? This basic question gives rise to all sorts of astonishingly complex answers, at the end of which we’re left with … common sense
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CommentWellies, muck and diggers
Construction dispute books, however erudite and authoritative, must brim with experience of the real world if they’re to be of use to those at the sharp end
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CommentRaise a glass to the clerk of works
Who’s the most important man on a building site? Well, it depends on circumstances, but have you ever thought it might be the humble clerk of works? The chap with no powers but the one to make sure the job goes right?
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CommentTalking yourself out of a job
Alright, love, I’ll rebuild your bungalow in 17 weeks for £130k. Agreed. What, you want a kitchen? That’s extra. And where’s my dosh? All of it! Of course I need more time, I can’t work in the rain, can I? I’ve been what? !!£**@!!!*
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CommentTreasure & Son Ltd vs Martin Dawes: The riddle of existence
If you get into an adjudication based on a variation to a contract that is agreed but not signed, is the adjudication valid? The High Court has just given us a clear answer to that one …
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CommentTime wasters
One thing a legal dispute is good for is kicking a claim for payment into the long grass, which means all the time spent being fair to both parties is very unfair to the one that wants its money
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CommentFlogging a dead parrot
Here’s a trip down memory lane … back to the early seventies and Monty Python’s Flying Circus. But what could a hilarious, abusive, surreal sketch show possibly have to do with the modern construction industry?
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CommentWhat the Fiona tells us
The House of Lords has just decided a case that’s been around long enough to acquire its own nickname. And although it’s about a huge shipping dispute, it will have a big impact on construction
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CommentThe simple secret of success
The expert goes to Majorca to deliver a paper about the contractual side of building – and learns a lot about how it really works from a man who doesn’t even go to his lecture …
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CommentLeave them judges alone
When a judge in a notorious Scottish murder trial dismissed the case, he was publicly criticised by the lord advocate, who was herself publicly criticised by the lord justice general. There’s a lesson for us all here …
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CommentIts own worst enemy
The government relies on the PFI to deliver its improvements to public services. So why is it planning to wreck the systems that protect its delicate cash flow mechanism?
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CommentIt ain’t necessarily so
If a client presented with a payment certificate hasn’t paid up 14 days later, the dispute begins on day 15, right? Wrong. As this Scottish case demonstrates, you need to apply a little common sense
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CommentWhat are words worth?
You might not expect a member of Russia’s super-rich to speak the same language as a British builder. But when it came to deciding if the oral agreement they had was a binding contract, it was the English court that had the final word
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CommentAkenhead becomes TCC judge
Barrister Robert Akenhead takes on role as judge at the Technology and Construction Court
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CommentA house up a well-known creek
If your home played host to the contents of your neighbours’ toilets 17 times in eight years, you might expect the law to offer you some redress. Remarkably, as one London householder found out, it does nothing of the sort
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CommentThere is no alternative
It is tempting to pronounce that lawyers should stay out of adjudication and let construction types untangle disputes. But too many arguments can be decided fairly only with specialist legal expertise
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Comment
Dayworks document revised by RICS and Construction Confederation
New document outlining dayworks in building contracts is launched this month
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CommentKiss and tell
The only people who love contracts are lawyers. For everybody else – the plasterers, the foremen, the managers – they’re just long, fuzzy words that bear no relationship to how they do their work. ‘Keep it short and simple’ should be the first rule of a legislator