The Supreme Court’s eagerly awaited decision in Providence Building Services Limited v Hexagon Housing Association Limited was released yesterday.

Full details of the background to the claim and both the first instance and Court of Appeal decisions can be found in our December 2025 legal update.

In summary, the issue was the interpretation of a termination clause in JCT contracts and whether repeated late payments by an employer entitled a contractor to terminate its employment under the contract.

Many in the construction industry were surprised by the Court of Appeal’s decision in August 2024 which held that if an employer paid late on two occasions – even if months apart and notwithstanding that the employer had cured its defaults within the contractual remedy period – following the second late payment the contractor could immediately terminate its engagement under the contract.

Fortunately, order has been restored by the Supreme Court.

Like many, the Supreme Court considered that allowing a contractor to terminate simply because it received two payments a single day late would be “an extreme outcome”.

Moreover, presuming that an employer’s and a contractor’s rights to terminate “should be symmetrical” is misconceived since (a) the parties’ “relevant contractual obligations are so very different” and (b) the termination clauses “were plainly asymmetrical”, leading the Supreme Court to question why this would be so if the provisions were in fact intended to have identical meanings.

Given the widespread use of JCT contracts in the sector, this decision is critical as it affirms what many in the industry understood the standard provisions to mean: it is only if the employer has failed to cure any earlier specified default within the contractual remedy period (being 14 days in an unamended JCT contract) that the contractor can terminate for a repetition of the specified default.

If parties’ intend their contract’s termination provisions to be interpreted otherwise, they are advised to seek legal assistance to amend the JCT’s standard provisions as desired.

If you have questions about this case or require any assistance with your building contracts, please contact Brenna Baye or any other member of our Construction Team.

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