Oakland Wantage Care Home Ltd v Stepnell Ltd [2026] EWHC 1530 (TCC)

The contract was an amended JCT Design and Build Contract 2016 for a 65 bed care home at Wantage. After practical completion the contractor sent the employer's agent a final account document in February 2022, then a further statement in February 2024. An adjudicator decided the February 2024 statement was the relevant statement under clause 4.24.6 and, with no Final Payment Notice or Pay Less Notice in response, the employer had to pay the sum stated. The employer paid, then sought Part 8 declarations that the statement had not become conclusive, to open the way to a true value adjudication of the final account.

Jonathan Acton Davis KC decided both issues against the employer. The February 2022 document was not the Final Statement: it was headed draft, contained forecast and estimate figures and promised further information, so a reasonable recipient would not treat it as the contractor's Final Statement; the February 2024 statement was therefore the relevant statement. On conclusivity, clause 4.24.6 requires a notice disputing anything in the Final Statement, which presupposes that the statement has first been given. Correspondence predating the statement, including the agent's March 2022 response, was not a notice of dispute. The declarations were refused.

The decision confirms that conclusive evidence provisions in the JCT final account machinery run on a strict timetable. An employer who wants to keep a final account open must serve its notice of dispute after the final statement arrives and before the due date for the final payment; earlier exchanges, however clearly they record the dispute, do not count. The case also shows the court testing what amounts to a Final Statement through the eyes of a reasonable recipient, with drafts and forecasts falling short.