Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Deliberate concealment under section 32 LA 1980 after Canada Square v Potter: implications for construction defects limitation (England and Wales)

Published on: 16 January 2024

Published by a LexisNexis Construction expert

Legal News

Article summary

Introduction

Section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980 (LA 1980) defers the start of the ordinary limitation period where any fact material to the claimant’s cause of action has been deliberately kept from the claimant by the defendant. Under LA 1980, s 32(2), for the purposes of s 32(1), a deliberate breach of duty carried out in circumstances where it is unlikely to be discovered for a period counts as deliberate concealment of the facts bound up with that breach of duty, for those purposes in question. These rules are plainly pertinent to construction contracts, and defects in particular. The covering up of substandard workmanship and/or defective works arising from poor design in the normal course of construction frequently leads to the much later appearance of defects through physical damage, or to the uncovering of the poor workmanship/design itself before any physical damage occurs. A recent run of case law (including at appeal level) has examined the proper interpretation of the statutory limitation provisions in the context of defects claims...

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