Construction dispute resolution for contractors generally runs through three routes, direct repair or price reduction under consumer law, statutory adjudication where it applies, or a court claim, and each one demands a different shape of evidence before you start.
This is general information, not legal advice
Nothing here is legal advice. It sets out what the law and the rules say, in plain terms, so you can see which route fits your dispute before you spend time on it. Any court material referred to is for England and Wales. Nobody can tell you what a court, an adjudicator or the other party will actually decide, and this post will not try.
Route one: require the work put right or the price reduced
If you are on the receiving end of a complaint about work you supplied as a service, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets the baseline. Section 49 treats every contract to supply a service as including a term that you perform it with reasonable care and skill. If that is disputed, section 55 gives the other party the right to require you to perform the service again to complete it properly, within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, and you must bear the necessary cost including labour or materials. That right falls away only if completing performance in conformity with the contract is impossible.
Where repeat performance is not available, or you have not done it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience, section 56 gives the other party the right to require a price reduction instead. Any refund that becomes due under that section must be paid without undue delay and in any event within 14 days of you agreeing they are entitled to it, by the same means they paid, with no fee charged for making it.
This route costs the least time. It needs photographic evidence of the defect, tied to the specific item and location, so both sides are looking at the same thing when they discuss repeat performance or price.
Route two: statutory adjudication, and who it is closed to
Section 108 of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 gives a party to a construction contract the right to refer a dispute arising under that contract to adjudication, at any time. The timetable is tight: the adjudicator’s appointment and the referral must happen within 7 days of the notice, and the adjudicator must decide within 28 days of referral, unless the parties agree a longer period after referral, or the referring party consents to an extension of up to 14 days. The decision binds both sides until the dispute is finally resolved by legal proceedings, arbitration or agreement.
Adjudication is fast by the standards of a formal process, but it is not casual. Because the referral has to go in within 7 days of notice, the evidence bundle, photographs, records, correspondence, needs to already exist and be organised before you give notice, not assembled afterwards.
Route three: the county court, small claims track
Where the sum in dispute is not exceeding £10,000, Civil Procedure Rules Part 27 generally applies the small claims track. This track keeps things comparatively informal: the strict rules of evidence do not apply and the court need not take evidence on oath. But two rules matter for how you prepare.
- Rule 27.5: no expert may give evidence, written or oral, at a hearing without the court’s permission, so a formal expert report is not something you can assume you will be allowed to rely on.
- Standard directions require each party, at least 14 days before the final hearing, to file and serve on every other party copies of all documents they intend to rely on.
That 14-day filing point is the real deadline that drives preparation. Whatever you intend to rely on, dated photographs, written descriptions tied to each defect, correspondence, needs to be in a state you can copy and serve well ahead of that date, not gathered the week before.
Section 5 of the Limitation Act 1980 sets the outer boundary for a simple contract claim: an action founded on simple contract cannot be brought after six years from the date the cause of action accrued. That is the ceiling, not a target. Waiting years to build a case only makes the eventual evidence harder to assemble and to date convincingly.
What each route costs you in time, and the evidence it needs
Set against each other, the three routes trade speed against formality.
- 1Repeat performance or price reduction under the Consumer Rights Act: the quickest route to start, needs clear photographic evidence of the specific defect and its location, and a paper trail of the request and any agreement on remedy.
- 2Statutory adjudication: fast once notice is given, but only open where the contract is not with a residential occupier. Because the 7-day referral window is so short, your evidence has to be assembled and organised before notice goes in.
- 3Small claims in the county court: slower to reach a hearing, but comparatively informal once there. The 14-day pre-hearing disclosure deadline is the point everything has to be ready by, and expert evidence needs the court’s permission first.
Across all three, the common thread is the same: dated, located photographic evidence of each defect, recorded at the time and grouped so it is easy to hand over. Contractors who walk a site and photograph, circle and describe each item as they go, using something like SayScope to keep that record organised by room and by trade, are simply better placed whichever route the dispute ends up taking.