When assignment carries the dispute with it.
Rights assigned under a construction contract may also carry the remedies needed to enforce them, including adjudication. Paragon Group Ltd v FK Facades Ltd is a useful reminder that a dispute does not necessarily disappear because the original employer has moved on. Where the benefit of a construction contract has been assigned, the party now holding that benefit may still be able to enforce the contractual rights attached to it.
For contractors and subcontractors, the significance is practical. Construction projects often outlive the commercial structure that existed when the contract was signed. Employers sell assets. Development interests are transferred. Group companies reorganise. Contractual benefits are assigned. Years later, defects, delay, liquidated damages, payment issues or final account disputes may be pursued by a party who was not the original contracting counterparty. That matters because the contractor’s evidential burden remains rooted in the original project. The claimant may be new, but the facts will not be. Notices, payment records, completion evidence, photographs, programme material, correspondence and valuation records may all become critical long after the original employer has left the picture.
What happened
The dispute arose from remedial roofing works under an amended JCT Minor Works Contract. The employer’s benefit under the contract had been assigned, and Paragon later sought to enforce an adjudicator’s decision against FK Facades.
FK Facades resisted enforcement on jurisdictional grounds. Its position was that Paragon was not an original party to the construction contract and therefore could not refer the dispute to adjudication. In effect, FK Facades argued that the assigned rights did not carry with them the right to use the adjudication machinery under the contract and the statutory adjudication regime. The Technology and Construction Court rejected that challenge at enforcement stage. The court treated the assigned contractual benefit as carrying with it the legal remedies needed to enforce the assigned rights. On that analysis, the right to adjudicate was not separated from the substantive contractual rights that had been assigned.
Why the decision matters
The decision matters because assignment is often treated as a corporate or transactional issue rather than a live dispute risk. In practice, it can become both. Where contractual rights are assigned, the enforcing party may change, but the underlying contractual position may remain capable of being pursued. For contractors, the risk is assuming that a change in ownership, development structure or employer-side entity weakens the enforcement position. That assumption may be unsafe. If the benefit of the contract has been validly assigned, the assignee may be able to step into the original employer’s position for the purpose of enforcing the relevant contractual rights.
The practical effect is that a contractor may face adjudication from an entity it did not originally contract with. That can be particularly uncomfortable where the project record has not been preserved properly, or where key events occurred years earlier and now need to be reconstructed from incomplete files.
The practical message for contractors
The practical lesson is not that assignment should be treated as exceptional. It is that contractors should manage assignment risk as part of ordinary commercial governance. Before signing, contractors should understand whether the contract permits assignment, whether consent is required, whether there are limits on who rights can be assigned to, and whether the assignment wording extends to enforcement rights and remedies. During and after the project, notices of assignment should be tracked carefully and retained with the contract records.
This is exactly where contractors can lose value. If the project record is weak, the contractor may find itself defending a claim brought by a new party using rights created under an old contract. The issue will not be whether the contractor remembers what happened. The issue will be whether the original project position can still be evidenced properly. Delay records, completion evidence, payment applications, pay less notices, variation records, instructions, photographs, programmes and correspondence should therefore be treated as long-term defence assets. Assignment changes the identity of the enforcing party. It does not remove the need for disciplined evidence.
Legalbuild’s view
The real importance of Paragon v FK Facades is that it reinforces a broader commercial point. Recovery and defence positions are built during the project, not when a new claimant emerges later. Where contracts are assignable, contractors should assume that the project record may need to stand up to scrutiny beyond the original commercial relationship. The employer may change. The claim may be pursued by an assignee. But the facts, notices, programme position and valuation evidence will still be tested against the contract as administered on site.
That is why Legalbuild’s model matters. Assignment risk is not managed by reacting once an adjudication notice arrives. It is managed by understanding the contract before signing, tracking changes in the employer-side position, preserving the evidential record during delivery, and ensuring that the contractor’s commercial position remains capable of being defended if rights are later enforced by another entity. Paragon v FK Facades is therefore not just a case about assignment. It is a reminder that contractual rights can travel further than contractors expect. Where the evidence has not been built and preserved properly, the dispute may arrive long after the project team assumed the commercial risk had moved on.
Source note: Paragon Group Ltd v FK Facades Ltd [2026] EWHC 78 (TCC); section 136 Law of Property Act 1925; Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996; Scheme for Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Regulations 1998.
