Cases - Urang Commercial Ltd v Century Investments Ltd & Anor
Record details
- Name
- Urang Commercial Ltd v Century Investments Ltd & Anor
- Date
- [2011]
- Citation
- EWHC 1561 (TCC)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Counterclaim - set-off - withholding notice
- Summary
-
Urang are contractors who were claiming money under a JCT contract. The defence to the claim was that the client had a counterclaim. However no withholding notice had been issued. The adjudicator refused to take the counterclaim into account. The client refused to pay against the adjudicator’s decision. Urang sought a judgment enforcing the adjudicator’s decision.
The need to issue a withholding notice applies only to sums stated as due in interim valuations. There is no requirement to serve a withholding notice in relation to other claims made by a contractor, whether under a different provision in the contract or for damages. The requirement for a withholding notice is confined to the procedure in relation to interim valuations as required by sections 110 and 111 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996. Accordingly, the adjudicator was wrong to decide that Century could not deploy its counterclaim as a defence to Urang's claims in the adjudication (apart from the claim under the certificate) in the absence of a withholding notice.
Therefore, a withholding notice is not required before an adjudicator can consider a counterclaim by way of a set-off defence to a claim under a JCT contract unless the claim is for a certified sum pursuant to an interim valuation or any other provision that requires a sum to be paid unless a withholding notice has been issued. The absence of a withholding notice will not necessarily deprive the responding party of a valid set-off defence if the responding party has a valid counterclaim.