Deerns UK Limited v VDC LHR11 Limited [2026] EWHC 1509 (TCC)

Under a consultancy agreement for engineering services on a development at Chandos Park Estate, London, Deerns claimed 910,501.71 pounds plus VAT on the basis that VDC's pay less notices were out of time. The question was whether the contract provided a final date for payment compliant with section 110(1)(b) of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, when the payment terms linked the final date to the consultant's invoice rather than fixing a set period after the due date.

Mr Justice Eyre applied the line of authority in Rochford and Lidl, which both parties accepted: the Act requires an identified and fixed period between the due date and the final date for payment. Because these terms tied the final date to an event, the contract failed to provide a final date, paragraph 8 of the Scheme for Construction Contracts imposed a 17 day period, and the pay less notices were late. The court rejected an estoppel by convention on the documents and held it had no power to soften the Scheme by substituting the 30 day interval the parties had contemplated. Judgment was entered for the claimant in the amounts claimed.

The case confirms that pegging the final date for payment to an invoice or any other event, whether that event falls before or after the due date, invalidates the payment timetable and lets the Scheme in. Paying parties who assume their agreed 30 day terms survive may find themselves on a 17 day fuse with their pay less notices already out of time. The final date must be drafted as a fixed period after the due date, nothing else.