All articles by Tony Bingham – Page 27
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Features
Don't forget to write
Does the Construction Act apply if there is only an oral agreement? The act seems to say yes, but the judge in a recent case said no. Clearly it's an urgent case for treatment.
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Features
Home From Hell
The combination of an incompetent trainee surveyor, two wrongly issued certificates and a difficult "domestic" client resulted in 11 years of legal and financial nightmares.
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Features
Stop right there!
If someone brings an adjudication against you when they have no right, do you have to go through the motions and hope to get it overturned later, or can you get a court to halt it?
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Features
Column inches
Four men were crushed to death when a three-storey office collapsed on them in 1995. Five years later the truth has come out. The lessons we can learn should last much longer than this building did.
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Features
Take notice!
The industry does not always seem to take the payment provisions in the Construction Act completely seriously. The latest court ruling on adjudication shows this to be an unwise attitude.
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Features
The right stuff
At last, the Human Rights Act has made its way into UK law. It may not be something many of us have to think about on an everyday basis, but by Jove, it's going to affect us all.
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Features
Dangerous choices
Be wary of being named as an arbitrator or adjudicator before a dispute has arisen – you could fall foul of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is about to be incorporated into English law.
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Features
You cannot be serious, ref!
So, the case is closed, the verdict is in writing – only the referee has slipped up and written the result down wrong. It’s a simple case of correcting the mistake, right? Ah – not so fast.
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Features
Boundary disputes
A recent case concerning pipework on a pharmaceutical site has focused attention on whether an adjudicator has the right to hear certain cases. Wouldn't it be sensible to sort this out early on?
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Features
Housewives' choice
The JCT deserves a pat on the back for its new domestic works contract. It s eight pages long, easy to use and could save a lot of trouble when Mrs Bingham hires a contractor to build an extension.
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Features
Naughty contracts
It has come to our attention that there are certain firms attempting to evade the Construction Act. Mr Raynsford is very cross about all this, and if anyone is found guilty they’re in hot water …
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Comment
How to come a cropper
The Civil Procedure Rules make new demands on expert witnesses. Here's the story of one expert who didn't seem to appreciate that – and what Lord Woolf had to say about it.
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Features
Winner takes all (maybe)
Whose side are you on – the one that says the loser in an adjudication should pay the winner’s costs, or the other that says each party should pay their own costs, never mind who wins?
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Comment
Pet adjudicators
Tempting though it is to ensure that you get a tame adjudicator by writing their name into the contract document, you might be arming your opponent with a weapon of last resort.
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Features
Justice at the speed of light
The new payment rules are getting disputes worked out in only 28 days – none of that hanging around waiting for the other chap to go bust. But the courts can move even faster.
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Features
Tale of the expected
A recent case is worth looking at precisely because it is nothing unusual for construction, just a bog standard tale of things going pear-shaped on site – and in court.
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Features
Who's going to pay?
Does the Scheme for Construction Contracts give adjudicators the power to make one side pay the other's costs in an adjudication? The jury is still out.
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Features
Access all areas
New legislation requires service providers and owners of public buildings to make their premises easily accessible for disabled people. Great news for disabled people – and builders.
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Features
Who needs experts?
Lord Woolf believes that limiting the number of expert witnesses in construction disputes will reduce the cost of litigation, but will it? And is it a workable solution anyway?
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Features
Not blind before the law
Lord Denning's career as a judge dedicated to common sense and the righting of wrongs is worth celebrating especially by companies in the construction industry.