About this episode
Jacob Austin discusses recent UK construction judgments affecting subcontractors' payment and dispute handling.
Episode 139 of The Subcontractors Blueprint delivers Jacob Austin's Spring Case Law Coffee Break — a plain-English breakdown of four recent UK construction judgments that directly affect how subcontractors get paid, handle disputes and exercise their contractual rights. Jacob walks through a Supreme Court ruling on JCT termination (Providence v Hexagon), a subcontract payment notice case that cost a main contractor £217,000 (Vision v Jetcraft), an adjudication enforcement fight where the losing party tried every argument going (Musi v Davis), and a cautionary tale about getting the adjudicator nomination form wrong (RDN JM v Purpose Social Homes). Direct, practical, grounded in real contract consequence. Key Takeaways A payment default that gets cured inside the 28-day window never builds into a right to terminate, which means the JCT "repeated default" shortcut cannot be used unless the earlier termination right actually crystallised, and this same termination wording carries into JCT 2024. Termination is the nuclear option. The contract's other tools -interest, the seven-day right to suspend work, and adjudication - cost nothing to use and almost always force the paying party…
People in this episode
Host: Jacob Austin
Topics covered
- construction law
- subcontractor rights
- payment disputes
- contractual obligations
- UK case law
Keywords
- construction judgments
- subcontractor payment
- dispute resolution
- contract termination
- adjudication
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: JCT, Providence, Hexagon, Vision, Jetcraft, Musi, Davis, RDN JM, Purpose Social Homes
Places: UK
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- Why Being Right Doesn't Get You Paid · May 18, 2026 · 20 min
- Main Contractors Are Banking on Your Silence for Their Cashflow · May 11, 2026 · 21 min
- The Hidden Dangers Buried in Your Subcontract · May 4, 2026 · 29 min
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