Builders’ Problems SOLVED

Monies owed from 2016 – can I make a claim?

QMY COMPANY completed a new build for a client back in March 2016, but the final account was not never agreed, which left around £48,000 still in contention.

We attended the defects within the 6-month defects liability period and although it was always my intention to chase up the account, other priorities always seemed to get in the way, and I never got around to settling the account.

Since the turn of 2023, work has slowed down, which has allowed me to dust off some old files and chase retention monies held or finalising the final accounts. This particular project was one of the files I picked up, and I was just about to write to the client, when it suddenly occurred to me that I may be out of time.

I have asked a quantity surveyor and an architect if they knew the answer, but both came back with different views, so I am none the wiser. What I do not want to do is write to the client and be embarrassed to learn that I have left the account too late.

contracts executed as a deed and states: “An action upon a specialty shall not be brought after the expiration of twelve years from the date on which the cause of action accrued.”

Assuming that your contract is a simple contract, you will have 6 years to bring a claim from the date that the cause of action accrued, otherwise the claim will be timebarred.

The first port of call is the Limitation Act 1980. Section 5 of the Act states that: “An action founded on simple contract shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued”, meaning that a claim in a simple contract must be brought within six years from the date of the accrual of the cause of action, whilst section 8(1) of the Act, deals with

The date that the cause of action accrued will depend upon the wording of the contract, but the starting point will be when the work (or services) has been performed, which in your case will be sometime in March 2016, hence the limitation to bring a claim will expire sometime in March 2022, meaning that your claim is timebarred.

It will not depend on when you applied for the monies or sent your invoice, and there have been some recent cases on this over the past couple of years, for example, Hirst & Another v Dunbar & Others [2022] EWHC 41 (TCC), where the court held that an action accrues from the completion date of the work and not when the invoice is submitted, and LJR Interiors Ltd v Cooper Construction Ltd [2023] EWHC 3339 (TCC), where the court also held that action accrues from the completion of the work whilst the balance of outstanding monies does not become due again because an application is issued.

It will be different if say you executed a JCT form of contract, as there is a payment certification process that continues even after practical completion has been