Adjudication - Subcontractor, H&J Construction Services Ltd - Groundworks, Care Home

Project Overview

H&J Construction Services Ltd, a Subcontractor who had undertaken groundworks at Melbourn Springs Care Home in Royston, instructed Arbicon to resolve a dispute for the subcontract works.  There were substantial disputes in respect of the valuation of the variation account and daywork items. The subcontract account had a value of circa £750,000, of which circa £200,000 was in dispute.    

Arbicon worked closely with the subcontractor to develop and submit a fully measured account, with corresponding substantiating evidence and documents that robustly set out the subcontractor’s claims. This was then issued to the main contractor as a formal application for payment in accordance with the subcontract terms.

The main contractor however failed to issue a proper payment notice or payless notice against this application. 

Solution

Arbicon commenced an adjudication to recover the claimed sums in full as a default notified sum in the absence of a proper notification.

As soon as the adjudication commenced, the main contractor retaliated by commencing their own adjudication on the true value of the works, alleging that the application was overvalued by some £200k and that there was no sum due. This meant there were two adjudications running concurrently, one regarding the sum to be paid as a notified sum, and one as to the true value of the account.

Arbicon represented the subcontractor in both concurrent adjudications and were successful in both, with awards confirming that:

- our client was due to be paid the full sum in default due to a payless notice not being issued, and;
- the true value of the account was substantially similar to what was submitted by Arbicon and was £200k higher than the value alleged by the main contractor.

As a result, our subcontractor client received payment of a substantial sum that had been wrongly withheld by the main contractor.

Value

£200,000