The drylining enterprise Gypcraft Drylining Contractors Ltd (Gypcraft) and the London contractor Vision Construct Ltd (Vision) found themselves at odds about whether or not the confounded Construction Act payment rigmarole had been complied with. Gypcraft’s interim account called for a £216,947 cheque, but Vision said nil. The adjudicator, Mr Richard Silver, ordered the cheque. So too now has the judge in the High Court. The baseline problem is that we are all pretending the payment rules are so chock full of traps and technicalities that an adjudicator or judge might be persuaded to decide the case on a technicality instead of the real issue. In this Gypcraft vs Vision spat, neither adjudicator nor judge ran with the technical trial balloons. Let’s have a closer look.

The whole reason for the Construction Act was the awful shenanigans that plagued our industry in getting paid. In short, cash starvation was a great game for bullies. So the Latham reforms and eventually the Construction Act provided two (at least) key simple themes: (1) being informed of what cash to expect and when to expect it, and (2) if the payee didn’t like the sound of what to expect then they could call for an adjudicator. 

Read more…