Summary

Persimmon Homes is suing the design and build contractor for a residential development at Orwell Quay, Neptune Marina, Ipswich, for fire safety remedial works it says cost £17,716,106.74. At the case management hearing the defendants asked the court to order a full Scott schedule: each defect, its location, the remedial works and the cost of each.

Mr Justice Pepperall refused. The external wall pleading was thin but set out the ingredients of the case. The internal defects probably needed more particulars, but the proportionate route was a targeted request under CPR Part 18. The ruling is procedural. Liability has not been decided.

Background and facts

The first defendant was employed by Persimmon under a design and build contract, and practical completion was achieved in 2006. After the Grenfell fire the management company investigated. Defects were found in the external walls and the internal compartmentation, said to give rise to a risk to life and safety, and remedial works followed under a settlement agreement.

Persimmon claims against the contractor under section 1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972. It also seeks building liability orders under section 130 of the Building Safety Act 2022 against the second and third defendants, in case the first defendant cannot pay.

The Particulars of Claim treat the two sets of defects differently. Paragraph 58 takes each external wall type in turn and pleads the defect, where it occurs and the breach of the Building Regulations or of the guidance in Approved Document B. Timber battens beside windows at three addresses were said not to be of limited combustibility, and cavity barriers were said to be absent, badly fixed or missing at openings. Paragraph 59 pleads the internal defects by category: fire protection to socket boxes, cable penetrations and soil vent pipes, untaped plasterboard joints and deflection heads. An appendix gave photographed examples only, and the pleading said it was not a full list.

The issue

The defendants said they could not tell which windows, which compartment walls or how many barriers were in issue. The internal case was pleaded by example, which they said was not permissible where the claim was not run on sampling and extrapolation. The remedial works pleading tied no work or cost to any defect or location. On that pleading, they argued, the experts would be left to find the case.

Persimmon answered that a Scott schedule was first suggested on 15 June 2026, in the run-up to the hearing. There had been no request for further information, no strike out application and no summary judgment application. Identifying every missing cavity barrier was neither possible nor proportionate, because remediation replaces barriers without investigating each one first. It called the request tactical, a way of running a positive case in the response column that should be pleaded instead.

The decision

The judge accepted the defendants' starting point. Pleadings must not be vague, and a defendant must understand the case well enough to plead to it, give disclosure and prepare its witness evidence. Relying on Standard Life Assurance Ltd v Building Design Partnership Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 1793, he held that pleading every issue to the nth degree is not proportionate. A high value claim earns proper particulars, not 200 pages of detail.

it is not the function of experts to plug the gaps and to work out what the true extent of the case is. Rather their role is to opine upon the pleaded issues.Mr Justice Pepperall, paragraph 29

Nor was it for the defendants to dig the case out of disclosure. Even so, the external wall pleading passed.

I reject the suggestion that the Claimant was required to identify, for example in respect of the timber battens, each and every window that was affected by the issue and consider that the level of detail given was sufficient.Mr Justice Pepperall, paragraph 30

The internal pleading was thinner still, although the defects were set out very succinctly. The judge thought more particulars were probably needed there, but a Scott schedule in grinding detail was the wrong tool.

Rather the remedy, if the Defendants consider that they need further information, is to exercise their right to raise a targeted request using the Part 18 procedure.Mr Justice Pepperall, paragraph 32

He added that a properly targeted and proportionate request should be answered, and that a refusal without good reason would likely lead the court to direct particulars. He said in the same passage that he did not bind the judge who hears any Part 18 application. The view was offered to encourage Persimmon to engage.

Practical implications

In a remediation claim the same defect may recur across many walls and many flats. This ruling says the claimant need not map every instance in the pleading. A defect pleaded by type, by wall build-up and against the regulation or guidance breached was enough for the defendants to know the case on the external walls. The other side of the ruling binds claimants: experts cannot fill gaps in the pleaded case, so what must be proved has to be pleaded.

For defendants the danger is timing. A Scott schedule first raised days before a case management hearing, with no Part 18 request and no strike out application behind it, met a refusal. The route the court pointed to is a targeted Part 18 request, made early and limited to what the defence actually needs.

[2026] EWHC 2498 (TCC), claim by Persimmon Homes Limited against three defendants, High Court of Justice, Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, Technology and Construction Court (KBD), Mr Justice Pepperall, hearing 19 June 2026, case number HT-2026-000057, transcript of judgment published 30 September 2026. Request for an order for a Scott schedule refused. Held that the external wall defects were sufficiently pleaded and that any further particulars of the internal defects should be sought by a targeted request under CPR Part 18.