Summary

Ilyrian, a subcontractor, served two statutory demands on Amber, its contractor, on 15 November 2025. It relies on £27,119.90 for additional works at the Alton Estate in 2019 and 2020, and £39,329.00 for works at Mander Court in 2021. Amber applied for final injunctions to stop winding-up petitions. Ilyrian said the Alton sum had become the notified sum because Amber's payment notice was late. Amber said the application failed clause 6.4 of the subcontract, the claim was statute-barred, and its delay cross-claim exceeded both debts.

The judge granted both injunctions. The Alton application failed the content requirements of clause 6.4 and created no notified sum. Independently, Amber's cross-claim of £62,203.39 was genuine and serious, and Amber had a substantial limitation defence. The Mander debt was not genuinely disputed, but the Alton cross-claim exceeded it. Amber won.

Background and facts

By an order dated 10 September 2019 Amber engaged Ilyrian for roofing works at Alton Estate, London SW15, for £9,370.81, incorporating the JCT Standard Form of Domestic Sub-Contract 2011 and Amber's further terms. The works were to run from 12 to 24 September 2019. Amber's staff asked for more work, and the job ran to 13 January 2020. Amber served a notice of specified default on 14 November 2019 alleging poor workmanship and delay. Ilyrian applied for payment in December 2019, revised on 17 January 2020. Amber's notice of 6 April 2020, sent again that September, deducted loss and expense for the overrun.

The Mander Court contract was oral. Ilyrian applied for £39,329 plus VAT in April 2021. In June 2021 Amber suspended payment after its client's contractors called the works non-compliant. Nothing was paid, and neither side took any further step on that account from October 2021 until the statutory demand.

The issue

A petition is restrained where there is a genuine and substantial dispute about the debt, or where a genuine and serious cross-claim equals or exceeds it. Ilyrian relied on sections 110B and 111 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, said its application met clause 6.4 in substance and that Amber's later assessment treated it as valid, and argued that the JCT final payment provisions postponed limitation. Amber said its deduction was deemed accepted under clause 6.3, the application omitted the clause 6.4 contents, and section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 barred the claim.

The decision

Amber had not shown how the 111 days of delay were calculated or produced precise costings. That did not deprive the cross-claim of substance. The 2019 and 2020 notices were made at the time, the claim had been live since 2020, and the missing detail was explained by a lapse of more than six years.

The inference goes to the supporting detail, not to the existence of the claim.Chief ICC Judge Briggs, paragraph 43

The 1996 Act did not displace the cross-claim. Even if a notified sum had arisen, Court of Appeal authority lets a payer that served no pay less notice still raise a genuine and serious cross-claim in answer to a petition. Neither side had sued, and in that stand-off Amber's own inaction did not undermine the claim.

Under clause 6.4, payment depended on a valid application, and the clause listed what one must contain. Ilyrian's application was in time but was not addressed to Amber, omitted order number GN/6755 and gave neither job title nor site address. Following a recent TCC decision on a similar clause, the judge enforced the clause as written.

Content requirements cannot be disregarded simply because the recipient understands that payment is being sought.Chief ICC Judge Briggs, paragraph 56

Amber ran numerous projects at once, so the identifiers served a real verification purpose. Post-contractual conduct cannot be used to construe the contract, and with estoppel disclaimed, Amber's valuation could not make an invalid application valid.

In the alternative, if the application had been valid, the judge adopted 11 March 2020 as the final date for payment, the latest date Ilyrian's evidence supported. An interim payment claim is a debt that accrues when the sum falls due unpaid. Clause 4.12.2 of the JCT subcontract preserves an unpaid interim payment on its existing terms and does not postpone it. No claim or adjudication was started by 11 March 2026.

Service of a statutory demand is not the bringing of an action and did not stop time running.Chief ICC Judge Briggs, paragraph 71

On Mander, Amber's deductions for fire certification, rectification and overheads did not bear scrutiny, and the debt was not genuinely disputed. The Alton cross-claim still answered it. It did not have to arise under the Mander contract; it lay between the same parties in the same capacities. On Amber's own net figure of £47,728.01 it exceeded the Mander debt by £8,399.01.

Practical implications

Where a subcontract sets content requirements for payment applications, expect them to be enforced as written, as they were here in insolvency proceedings. An application without the order number or site address may create no notified sum, and the payer's later assessment will not repair it.

A statutory demand is a poor tool for an old payment dispute. Time runs from the final date for payment of each interim sum, and the demand does not stop it.

Amber Construction Services Limited v Ilyrian Construction Ltd [2026] EWHC 2603 (BP), High Court of Justice, Business and Property Division, Insolvency and Companies List, Chief Insolvency and Companies Court Judge Briggs, judgment handed down 16 October 2026 following a hearing on 2 October 2026, case numbers CR-2025-008633 and CR-2025-008682. Applications by the contractor for final injunctions restraining presentation of winding-up petitions on two statutory demands dated 15 November 2025. Both injunctions granted.