Citation: [2025] EWHC 2005 (TCC)
The judgment in RBH Building Contractors Ltd v Ashley James & Anor has now been released. This case, involving James Frampton, raised several interesting points concerning residential occupier exception, payless notices and adjudicator's fees:
1) The Defendants successfully resisted summary judgment by relying on the residential occupier exception under section 106. Although there was a developer’s loan stating that the property would not be occupied and was for business purposes, the Court held that the defence raised issues that needed to be determined at trial. See [19] to [45].
2) Contrary to the adjudicator’s decision, the Court found the Defendants’ payless notice to be valid. A list of disputed bullet points was present, only some of which were valued in the notice itself. See [46] to [56].
3) The Court confirmed that if the adjudicator’s decision had been enforced, it would not have had jurisdiction to revisit the adjudicator's decision on his fees, despite concluding on the Part 8 that the adjudicator was wrong. See [57] to [77].
