All articles by Tony Bingham – Page 10
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NewsNetwork Rail was bound to be late
Delays to work on the West Coast Mainline over Christmas were entirely predictable, the surprise was it overran by just four days
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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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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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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
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CommentHappy ever after
Main contractors and subcontractors make all kinds of rash promises during the courting stage. Then they quarrel. A new toolkit from the National Specialist Contractors Council aims to keep things sweet to the end
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CommentDo you have breakdown cover?
Rolls-Royce didn’t take out joint-names insurance to cover construction of its new plant. When a leaking pipe caused £400,000 of damage, it insisted the policy wouldn’t have covered negligence. Not everyone agreed
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NewsBitten by a tiddler
A run in with BT reminds Building's legal blogger why people go to court to resolve even the teeniest of disputes
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CommentThank you, m’lud
Judge Coulson ruled recently that a court can pause a case and direct the parties to adjudicate their differences away. Which, apart from anything else, is a real vote of confidence in adjudication …
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CommentMind your language, minister
The government’s latest attempts at spelling out the Construction Act’s payment rules are a triumph of impenetrable gobbledegook. It’s time for some plain English
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CommentAn exemplary disaster
Fail to renew your public liability insurance at your peril, as this dreadful tale of a family-run electrical firm, a little old lady’s bungalow and some (possibly) poorly rigged festoon cabling proves