HT-2024-LDS-000013 - [2025] EWHC 90 (TCC)

Fecha: 04-Oct-2024

Background

Background

Throughout this judgment, there is reference to “a JCT contract”: it is abundantly clear, and I so find (for reasons set out later in this judgment), that any contract between the Claimant and the Fifth Defendant was not in any form produced by the Joint Contracts Tribunal.

The following chronology is of relevance to the applications:

	Date	Event
1	Early 2017	The Claimant invited the Second Defendant to visit the property and requested the First Defendant to provide services in relation to a new dwelling.
2	November 2017	The Claimant asserts that the First Defendant agreed to provide architectural and project management services in respect of the property.
3	About April 2019	The Claimant asserts that she entered into a contract with the First Defendant. The contract is said to be partly in writing and partly oral agreed during the course of meetings in or around April 2019.
4	About May 2020	The Claimant asserts that the First Defendant hired Vitkoson Limited as structural engineers. Vitkoson Limited produced two sets of structural reports. One proposed a raft foundation at the property.
5	About 17 February 2021	The Claimant asserts that she entered into a JCT contract with the Fifth Defendant in respect of building works at the property.
6	About February 2021	The Fifth Defendant started work at the property.
7	9 - 10 May 2021	The retaining wall collapsed. The health and safety executive imposed restrictions and then work continued at the site.
8	20 October 2021	Vitkoson Limited entered liquidation.
9	Unknown	After learning of the liquidation, the Claimant contacted the Fourth Defendant and asserts that she made a negligence claim against Vitkoson Limited.
10	1 November 2021	The Fourth Defendant declined the Claimant’s insurance claim against Vitkoson Limited.
11	4 March 2022	The report of Mr Fountain, Chartered Building Surveyor, is obtained (“the Fountain Report”). The Claimant relies upon this in respect of the losses claimed.
12	About 13 June 2022	The Fifth Defendant asserts that after completing the works it was able to complete, it terminated the building contract with the Claimant.
13	11 September 2023	The Claimant sent a letter of claim to the First and Second Defendants. No letter of claim was sent to the Fifth Defendant.
14	2 November 2023	The Claimant issued her claim out of the Technology and Construction Court in the Rolls Building, London. There had been no compliance with any relevant pre-action protocol by the Claimant.
15	15 November 2023	The Claimant served proceedings. Practice Direction 57A was not complied with and the Claimant did not provide any initial disclosure with the Particulars of Claim. The Fountain report was attached to the Particulars of Claim.
16	27 November 2023	The First and Second Defendants (then acting in person) applied to strike out the claim, to remove the Second Defendant from the proceedings and for a stay of proceedings to permit compliance with the pre-action protocol.
17	29 November 2023	The Fifth Defendant’s solicitors contacted the Claimant’s counsel to note that the Claimant had not complied with any pre-action protocol before issuing proceedings.
18	30 November 2023	The Claimant asserted through her counsel that, as the parties had engaged in meetings during 2021 and 2022, engagement with the pre-action protocol “would be a waste of time”. The Claimant did not intend to stay proceedings for compliance with the protocol “for such fruitless exercise time and again”.
19	30 November 2023	The First Defendant and solicitors for the Fourth Defendant also proposed that proceedings be stayed to comply with the protocol. Solicitors for the Fourth Defendant drew attention to various deficiencies in the Claimant’s pleaded case.
20	1 December 2023	The Claimant’s counsel responded to the email from the Fourth Defendant’s solicitors to state that the Claimant did not trust the First, Second, Third and Fifth Defendants because they had made different statements before and in meetings in 2021 and later changed their positions and therefore the Claimant “is not too keen to follow your client’s purpose of PAP”. In a later email the same day, it was asserted that the Claimant was “not comfortable” in engaging with the protocol process.
21	5 December 2023	The Claimant’s counsel stated that the Claimant did not “want to engage in any further PAP” until all the Defendants had submitted their Defences.
22	20 December 2023	The Third Defendant filed his Defence.
23	11 January 2024	The Third Defendant applied to strike out the claim against him.
24	15 January 2024	Order of Kerr J giving permission to amend the Claim Form and Particulars of Claim.
25	19 January 2024	By email at around 13:42, the Claimant’s counsel circulated a proposed Re-Amended Particulars of Claim which expanded on the allegedly defective design of the foundations and sought to make a case against the Second Defendant personally. Those proposed amendments were not agreed. Later the same day, the solicitors for the First and Second Defendants, Fourth Defendant and Fifth Defendant each filed Defences.
26	22 January 2024	The Claimant filed a notice of discontinuance against the Second Defendant.
27	15 February 2024	The Claimant filed a Reply to each Defendant’s Defence.
28	9 May 2024	The Fifth Defendant applied to strike out the Claimant’s claim and/or for summary judgment against the Claimant.
29	30 May 2024	The Claimant circulated an engineering report from Mr Sparkes (“the Sparkes report”).
30	7 June 2024	The Claimant’s claim against the Third Defendant was struck out.
	10 June 2024	The Claimant’s counsel circulated a further version of a proposed Re-Amended Particulars of Claim.
31	14 June 2024	The claim was transferred to the Technology and Construction Court in Leeds.
32	10 July 2024	The Claimant’s counsel circulated a further version of a proposed Re-Amended Particulars of Claim.
33	15 July 2024	The Claimant’s counsel circulated a further version of a proposed Re-Amended Particulars of Claim.
34	29 July 2024	The claim was listed for a Case Management Conference (“CMC”) on 4 October 2024.
35	16 August 2024	The Claimant applied to re-amend the Amended Particulars of Claim.
36	20 September 2024	The Claimant served the Sparkes report.
37	27 September 2024	After various representations from the parties, the court vacated the CMC and listed these applications for one day.

I have had the benefit of reading all of the witness statements contained within the bundles, together with the various documents to which I was taken during the course of the hearing and directed to in skeleton arguments.

The witness statements relied upon were as follows:

Ms Sophie Laura Sturgess dated 9 May 2024 and 20 September 2024 for the Fifth Defendant;

Mr Waqas Masood (the Claimant’s son-in-law) dated 28 August 2024 for the Claimant in response to the application of the Fifth Defendant;

Ms Rebecca Jane Goodchild dated 17 September 2024 and 20 September 2024 for the Fourth Defendant;

Mr Nikolas Neale Carle dated 20 September 2024 for the First Defendant.

I do not propose to rehearse all of the arguments raised, nor all of the evidence referred to in skeleton arguments and during the course of the hearing. However, I record that I read and considered the evidence as a whole, as well as various documents within the bundle to which my attention was drawn, in addition to all the arguments before coming to my decision.