Building and Property

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) has published a new Users’ Guide to Adjudication, which replaces the previous guide from the Construction Umbrella Bodies Adjudication Task Group, produced in 2003.

Since its introduction in the late 1990s, adjudication has come to dominate alternative dispute resolution in the construction industry. Adjudication was envisaged as a process that construction companies could use with or without external professional assistance.

Over the years many novice users turned to the original Users’ Guide to Adjudication, to understand how adjudication works and to decide if it was a process that would help them.

The hope is that the new guide will assist both those who wish to take a dispute to adjudication and those who have received a notice of adjudication. 

The Royal Borough of Greenwich has welcomed the decision to dismiss a claim for Judicial Review of the council’s decision to grant planning permission for the Enderby Wharf development in 2015. The Claimant was granted permission to bring the claim earlier this year on the grounds that the Council had (allegedly) failed to require an assessment of the cumulative effects of the proposed development on air quality in the immediate area.

Today (3 August) the High Court dismissed the claim, finding that the 2015 decision made by the Royal Borough of Greenwich was not unlawful and the Royal Borough had properly taken into account the cumulative effects on air quality.

Cllr Danny Thorpe, Deputy Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Sustainability said “The Council has followed due process relating to this planning application at all times, including seeking independent reports on specific technical areas such as air quality. Our decision was endorsed by the Mayor of London.

Research carried out by insurance company Churchill has revealed that 13 million homeowners have needed unexpected building work completed on their property since moving in. Over half of those who had major building work said knowing that in advance would have influenced their decision to buy the property.

Moreover, seven million did not have a survey completed on their current property. This includes 3.5 million people who did not have any type of independent checks completed and 3.6 million who assumed a mortgage valuation was sufficient. According to surveyors the most common three problems that can be detected by a building survey are damp, roof issues and subsidence.

The number of people who have at least a base level survey has increased over time: from 63% cent 20 years ago to 91% in the past 12 months. However, having a comprehensive building survey done has reduced significantly, from 28% 20 years ago to just 6% in the past 12 months.

Construction companies have been ordered to pay almost £8m in health and safety fines since new sentencing guidelines came into force earlier this year, according to BLM’s Health and Safety tracker.

In what was described as the most dramatic change to health and safety legislation in over forty years, new guidelines were imposed in February 2016 for health and safety, food hygiene and corporate manslaughter offences. The size of a business and its turnover are considerations for the court now in imposing these large fines. Large businesses with turnovers in excess of £50 million can face fines of up to £10 million for the most serious health and safety offences and corporate manslaughter fines could reach up to £20 million.