The Defendant engaged the Claimant builder to carry out work at his home in Beaulieu. Work carried out was in excess of £500,000. Initial letter of intent provided for a limited amount of work to be carried out. However, that letter of intent said that the work would be carried out under the terms and conditions of the JCT 1998 Private Without Quantities Contract. The Defendant sacked his construction advisers, and then proceeded to carry out some of the valuations on his own, before deciding to pay nothing further to the contractor.

The contractor commenced an adjudication, and the Adjudicator awarded £50,401.35. The Defendant refused to pay on the basis that:

• there was no written contract,
• if there was a contract it had been terminated,
• it was a dwellinghouse which was excluded from the HGCRA; and
• the agreement was contrary to the Unfair Terms in the Consumer contract Regulations 1999.

HHJ Peter Coulson QC held that the reference in the letter of intent to the JCT Form of Building Contract incorporated Article 5 which stated that any disputed difference would be referred to adjudication in accordance with the detailed provisions of clause 41(a). The letter of intent which had been issued by the Defendant’s advisers had been signed and returned by the Claimant. There was therefore a contract in writing, and adjudication provisions had been incorporated.

Work carried out in subsequent valuations included the value of varied work, as the contract provided for variations. The fact that the Claimant had not signed a second letter of intent in respect of that work was irrelevant. The additional work had been carried out pursuant to the written terms of the contract as that contract anticipated that there would be variations.

The contractual machine in respect of the payment had not entirely broken down. The defendant continued to operate it, and therefore it could not be said that the contract had terminated.

Finally, the adjudication provisions did not fall foul of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999. The Defendant had had competent objective advice from construction professionals, and the contractor did no more than accept the standard terms offered to it in the letter of intent. This approach was on all fours with Westminster Building Company Limited v Beckingham [2004] BLR 163. The Adjudicator therefore had jurisdiction and the Judge granted summary judgment in favour of the contractor.