JKJ v JKK and another matter [2026] SGSCT 22

These two claims arose from a dispute over the renovation of a home. The homeowner (the “Employer”) sought repayment and rectification, while the renovation contractor (the “Contractor”) claimed the outstanding price and payment for alleged variations. I ordered both claims to be transferred from the Small Claims Tribunals (the “SCT”) to the Magistrate’s Court under s 7 of the Small Claims Tribunals Act 1984 (the “SCTA”). These are the full grounds of my decision.

Background

The Employer engaged the Contractor to renovate his home for $29,785, including an agreed addition of $250 for lighting. The renovation comprised plumbing, electrical, tiling and cabinetry works. Half the price was payable upon the award of the contract, while the remaining half was payable progressively according to the progress of the works until completion. The parties subsequently disagreed about what those works comprised and whether the Contractor had performed them properly.

According to the Employer, some work was defective or incomplete, while other work for which the Contractor sought additional payment had already been included in the agreed price or had never been requested. The Contractor maintained that the Employer had instructed changes and additional work for which it was entitled to charge. The Employer further alleged that the Contractor suspended the original works while demanding payment for those disputed variations, causing him to terminate the contract. He had by then paid the Contractor $29,027.88.

The Employer brought Claim No 15079 of 2026 for repayment of $6,814.13, representing his third progress payment, and for rectification of the lighting, switches and grouting. The Contractor subsequently brought Claim No 16078 of 2026 for $14,129.12. Its demand comprised $757.12 remaining unpaid under the original agreement and $13,372 for the alleged variations. Both claims came before me on 7 September 2026.

At the hearing, the Contractor’s representative repeatedly confirmed that the Contractor relied on one contract comprising the original agreement and the alleged variations. On that account, the contract was worth $43,157. Its variation invoice also repeated the original progressive payment terms. The Employer disputed that he had agreed to the variations, and I made no finding that he had. Nevertheless, the contract on which the Contractor itself relied raised a question about whether the SCT could hear its claim.

The jurisdictional issue

That question arose because the amount demanded is not invariably the value which the SCTA assigns to a claim. Under s 2(2)(a), a claim for rescission is valued by reference to the contract. Section 2(2)(b) adopts the same measure for a claim to recover a progress payment due under the contract. In other cases, s 2(2)(c) uses the amount claimed. These provisions must therefore be applied before comparing the claim’s value with the ordinary limit of $20,000 under s 5(3), or the extended limit of $30,000 available with the parties’ written consent under s 5(4). Accordingly, the Contractor’s demand for $14,129.12 could exceed those limits if it was a claim for a progress payment under the contract it asserted.

The difficulty was that the Contractor sought what it said was the outstanding payment for a renovation which the Employer had brought to an end. That demand might naturally be described as one for a final payment. The question was whether a payment of that character nevertheless remained a “progress payment” within s 2(2)(b). Since the SCTA does not define the expression, I began with its ordinary meaning in context, before considering which reading better advanced the purpose of the legislation. That is the approach required by s 9A of the Interpretation Act 1965 (the “Interpretation Act”) (see Tan Cheng Bock v Attorney-General [2017] 2 SLR 850 (“Tan Cheng Bock”) at [37]–[43]).

In this context, “payment” refers to money paid or payable for work, while “progress” describes the advance of that work towards completion. Read together, the words seem to describe a payment which becomes due by reference to the progress made. That progress may take the renovation through its first stage, a later stage or, indeed, the remaining stage to completion. Thus, where payment becomes due as successive stages are completed, payment for completing the last stage can sensibly be described as payment for “progress”, just as payment for completing the first stage can. On that reading, the concluding instalment would remain within the expression and attract the contract’s value under s 2(2)(b).

Nevertheless, I found support for a narrower reading in Fenwick Elliott LLP, Dictionary of Construction Terms (Simon Tolson, Jeremy Glover and Stacy Sinclair eds) (Informa Law from Routledge, 2013) at p 212, which defines “progress payment” as “[a]n interim payment on account during the course of the works”. That definition confines the expression to interim payments during performance and would therefore exclude a payment finally settling the parties’ account. Such a reading also finds some support in ordinary language: a “progress payment” may naturally be understood as one falling due while the work remains “in progress”. A claim for a final payment falling outside that narrower meaning would accordingly be valued by its amount under s 2(2)(c).

Given those competing readings, the question was which meaning the expression should bear specifically in the SCTA. Section 9A(2)(b)(i) of the Interpretation Act permits consideration of extrinsic materials to resolve such an ambiguity. The materials identified in s 9A(3) include explanatory statements and Parliamentary debates, although that list is non-exhaustive and prescribes no mandatory order of consideration. I found it useful first to examine the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2004 (the “SOPA”), which uses the same expression for construction payments and expressly includes final payments within its definition. Understanding why the SOPA gives the expression that breadth would help explain what assistance its usage could provide in interpreting the SCTA.

Section 2 of the SOPA defines “progress payment” by reference to a person’s entitlement to payment for construction work carried out, or goods or services supplied, under a contract. It expressly includes a single or one-off payment and a payment based on an event or date, in each case including a final payment. The definition thus extends beyond successive instalments becoming payable as construction work advances. That breadth is understandable given the SOPA’s concern with cash flow in the construction industry. A contractor which has incurred expenditure on labour and materials may depend on receiving payment to meet its obligations and continue its work. Delayed payment may therefore disrupt construction and expose the contractor to financial distress while the parties dispute their respective entitlements (see W Y Steel Construction Pte Ltd v Osko Pte Ltd [2013] 3 SLR 380 (“W Y Steel”) at [18]–[20]).

To address that difficulty, the SOPA provides an expedited adjudication procedure through which payment disputes may be determined with provisional effect. The adjudicator’s determination binds the parties in the meantime, while their dispute remains capable of subsequent, final resolution through court proceedings, arbitration or agreement. This is the “temporary finality” explained in W Y Steel at [18]–[22] and Diamond Glass Enterprise Pte Ltd v Zhong Kai Construction Co Pte Ltd [2021] 2 SLR 510 (“Diamond Glass”) at [49]. The procedure enables the successful claimant to obtain payment without awaiting the final determination of all the parties’ differences. The opportunity for fuller consideration later therefore forms part of the justification for requiring compliance with the adjudicator’s decision now.

That concern with cash flow also explains why the SOPA’s protection extends to final payments. Completion does not necessarily remove the financial consequences of withholding payment for a project. The contractor may still have obligations arising from that project, and money withheld on one project may affect its ability to undertake another. Indeed, in Tiong Seng Contractors (Pte) Ltd v Chuan Lim Construction Pte Ltd [2007] 4 SLR(R) 364, the High Court held that the definition then in force already encompassed final payments, although it did not expressly mention them (at [24]–[28]; cf the definition of “progress payment” before and after the enactment of the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment (Amendment) Act 2018). The court explained that interrupted cash flow on one project could adversely affect another (at [38]–[43]), while recognising that adjudication remained provisional even where the payment sought was final (at [48]). The Court of Appeal subsequently accepted that the old definition was wide enough to include final payments in Lee Wee Lick Terence (alias Li Weili Terence) v Chua Say Eng (formerly trading as Weng Fatt Construction Engineering) and another appeal [2013] 1 SLR 401 at [95].

Those considerations explain why the SOPA gives “progress payment” a broad meaning. Including final payments brings them within the range of payments for which its adjudication procedure may be available. The same breadth under s 2(2)(b) of the SCTA, however, can restrict access to the SCT. Where the amount demanded is within the applicable monetary limit but the contract’s value exceeds it, treating the demand as a progress-payment claim brings the larger value into account. A narrower reading would leave the demand to be valued by its amount under s 2(2)(c). The same interpretation can therefore have opposite consequences for access to the respective procedures.

That difference limits the assistance which can be obtained from describing both schemes simply as providing quick and inexpensive redress. Under the SOPA, that aspiration supports including final payments within the adjudication procedure. Under the SCTA, it could instead support allowing a contractor’s modest final demand to remain within the monetary limits despite the greater value of the contract. Thus, an appeal to the general advantages of simplified proceedings does not resolve which meaning the expression should bear. That requires attention to the particular jurisdictional choice made in the SCTA.

I therefore found the SOPA’s usage of limited assistance in choosing between the competing readings. As the Appellate Division explained in Tan Hock Keng v Malaysian Trustees Bhd and another matter [2021] SGHC(A) 18 at [23]–[28], borrowing a statutory meaning requires attention to whether the expression is used in the same sense in both enactments, even where they concern similar subject matter. Here, the reasons for bringing final payments within the SOPA’s protection leave unexplained whether claims for those payments should attract a valuation which may exclude them from the SCT. I therefore turned to the explanatory statement and Parliamentary speeches accompanying the introduction of s 2(2)(b).

The explanatory statement to the Small Claims Tribunals (Amendment) Bill (Bill No 23 of 2018) explains that the rule now contained in s 2(2)(b) was aimed at “preventing a person from filing separate claims for progress payments under a contract” (see the Bill at p 19). The concern was that a claimant could use the instalments payable under one contract to pursue several SCT claims, each within the monetary limit, while obtaining an aggregate recovery exceeding it. Parliament addressed that possibility by requiring each progress-payment claim to be valued by reference to the whole contract. Thus, a claimant seeking individual instalments in separate proceedings would still have to bring the same contractual value into account each time.

Considered on its own, that explanation lends the narrower reading some force. A contractor whose earlier instalments have been paid without proceedings, and which sues only for the final balance, has not brought the series of claims contemplated by the explanatory statement. Nor is there a further instalment for which it might subsequently sue. Granted, some contractors might have sued for earlier instalments before claiming the final balance. I am concerned here, however, with the narrower situation in which there has been no earlier claim and determination of the claim for the balance would finally settle all disputes over the price. In that situation, the stated concern with separate proceedings does not itself explain why the claim should be valued by reference to the whole contract.

Nevertheless, the explanation must be read with the actual text of the provision which Parliament enacted. As the Court of Appeal explained in Tan Cheng Bock at [43], “[t]he law enacted by Parliament is the text which Parliament has chosen in order to embody and to give effect to its purposes and objects”. Here, Parliament addressed the concern with separate claims by prescribing how a claim for a “progress payment” was to be valued. The explanatory statement uses that same expression without explaining whether it includes the concluding instalment under a progressive payment arrangement. Its account of the problem therefore leaves unresolved the boundary which matters here. To consider that further, I turned to what Parliament had said about the SCT’s jurisdiction more generally.

In moving the Bill, the then-Senior Minister of State for Law explained that widening access to the SCT had to be balanced against preserving its ability to provide effective and swift redress for small claims. Expanding jurisdiction too far could increase the caseload and introduce more complicated legal issues better dealt with in the ordinary civil courts, which remained available to the parties. He also explained that the valuation provisions would clarify when jurisdiction depended on the contract’s value and when it depended on the amount claimed (see Singapore Parliamentary Debates, Official Report (9 July 2018) vol 94 (Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai)). The advantages of the SCT procedure thus had to be considered alongside the suitability of the disputes admitted to it. A claim falling outside its jurisdiction could still receive judicial determination elsewhere, albeit without the benefit of that procedure.

That balance bears on the present issue because the amount remaining unpaid may tell us relatively little about what must be decided before payment can be ordered. A contractor may have brought no earlier claim, and determination of its claim for the final balance may finally settle all disputes over the price. Nevertheless, deciding that claim may still require examination of whether earlier work was properly performed. That provides a possible reason for valuing the claim by reference to the whole contract, despite the comparatively modest sum sought. Whether earlier work remains relevant depends, however, on the particular agreement. It is therefore useful to consider what an arrangement for progressive payments actually achieves.

After all, the payment arrangement may reflect how the parties agreed to finance the renovation. The contractor needs money to purchase materials and pay workers as the renovation proceeds, while the employer may wish to see sufficient progress before releasing further sums. Those concerns may therefore explain the amount and timing of each instalment. For example, the parties may agree that $10,000 becomes payable when the plumbing is completed. That sum may simply be the portion of the overall price which they considered appropriate to pay once the renovation reached that stage. Completing the plumbing would then determine when the instalment became due, without establishing that the parties had agreed on a separate price of $10,000 for the plumbing itself.

The parties may, of course, agree on separate prices for particular works and provide for payment when the corresponding works are completed. Whether they have done so depends on their contract. Where several related works are undertaken for an overall price, however, I would be slow to infer such an agreement merely because payment falls due at particular stages. The reasoning in Jia Min Building Construction Pte Ltd v Ann Lee Pte Ltd [2004] 3 SLR(R) 288 (“Jia Min”) at [57]–[58] helps explain that caution. In explaining why a contractor had no general common law right to suspend work for non-payment, the court observed that an entire building contract for a lump sum payable by instalments did not, without specific and express agreement, permit performance to be divided into separate segments. For present purposes, the significance of the reasoning is that the obligation to complete the agreed works may continue across the stages at which payment becomes due. The payment schedule therefore need not divide the renovation into separate portions, each undertaken in return for its corresponding instalment. Such a division must be supported by the agreement read as a whole.

Further, even where the parties have—returning to the example above—separately priced the plumbing at $10,000, payment of that sum would not necessarily settle whether it had been properly performed. The employer might pay when the instalment became due and discover defects only later. Whether payment prevented a subsequent complaint would depend on the contractual terms and the circumstances in which it was made. If the employer remained entitled to damages for those defects and could set them off against the outstanding price, the court would have to examine the plumbing before deciding what remained payable. Indeed, Jia Min recognises that an otherwise available right of set-off is not ordinarily excluded without clear words (at [43]–[44]). Thus, work which has been separately priced and paid for may still require consideration when the contractor claims the final balance.

Accordingly, deciding a claim for the final instalment may involve considerably more than examining the work performed since the preceding payment. The court may have to determine what work was originally agreed, whether the employer subsequently requested changes, and whether the contractor properly performed the resulting obligations. Those questions may concern work carried out throughout the renovation, including work for which earlier payments have been made. The payments may therefore have reduced the sum outstanding without reducing the matters which remain disputed. Viewed against the concern with admitting disputes suitable for the SCT’s simplified procedure, that provides a possible reason for continuing to value the final instalment by reference to the whole contract.

Nevertheless, neither the explanatory statement nor the then-Senior Minister of State’s speech explains the valuation rule in those terms. Further, s 2(2)(c) continues to value other contractual claims by the amount claimed, even where their determination also requires examination of a larger contract. The broader concern with the SCT’s suitability therefore has to be understood within the distinction which Parliament drew. Its significance here depends on whether it supplies a reason for applying the same measure to the final instalment as to the earlier payments under a progressive arrangement. To assess that significance, I considered more closely how the SCT determines claims and the effect of the decisions it reaches.

The SCT’s procedure enables parties to present their cases without the formal pleadings used in ordinary civil litigation. The claim form provides a brief account of the claim and the relief sought, performing in condensed form some of the functions of pleadings (see XSQ v LLD [2026] SGSCT 1 at [6]). Parties generally present their own cases, and representation by advocates and solicitors is prohibited by s 23(3). Against that background, s 22 requires an informal, judge-led hearing in which the tribunal identifies the relevant issues and ensures that the parties adduce the relevant evidence. To carry out that role, the tribunal may give directions, summon witnesses, order the production of documents, and inquire into relevant matters which the parties have not raised.

Those powers are accompanied by considerable flexibility in how the tribunal investigates and decides the claim. Under s 28, it is not bound by the rules of evidence and may make its own inquiries. Section 12(4) similarly requires determination according to the substantial merits and justice of the case, having regard to the law, without strict legal forms or technicalities. That flexibility nevertheless operates within the obligation to observe natural justice under s 30, while information obtained through the tribunal’s own inquiries must be disclosed to the parties under s 28(4). Once the tribunal has determined the claim, it may order payment or the carrying out of work, or dismiss the claim, under s 35(1). Its orders are enforceable in the same manner as District Court judgments or orders under s 36 and, subject to the statutory appeal provisions, are final and binding under s 40. Thus, the simplified procedure produces a final adjudication of the parties’ rights on the claim.

That finality is reinforced by the limited right of appeal. Under ss 38(1) and (2), an appeal to the General Division of the High Court requires the District Court’s permission and must concern a question of law or whether the claim was outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction. Moreover, s 39(2) expressly prohibits the General Division from reversing or varying the tribunal’s determinations on questions of fact, or receiving further evidence. Section 38(3) nevertheless permits the District Court to remit the matter for reconsideration or order a rehearing even when refusing permission because the proposed appeal does not satisfy the requirements concerning law or jurisdiction. The General Division has corresponding powers under s 39(1)(b). Those safeguards allow further consideration in appropriate cases, although they do not give a dissatisfied party a general right to have the facts tried again.

It is in this respect that the comparison with adjudication under the SOPA becomes particularly instructive. As explained at [12]–[13] above, the SOPA requires compliance with the adjudicator’s decision while leaving the parties’ substantive rights open to subsequent, final determination. In W Y Steel at [22], the Court of Appeal described the abbreviated process as “somewhat roughshod”, while explaining that its shortcomings were offset by the opportunity to reopen the dispute later in a forum permitting more thorough consideration. That further opportunity forms part of the justification for requiring compliance with a decision reached quickly. Since an SCT determination ordinarily brings the dispute to its final end, I could not regard the possibility of a later trial as supplying the same justification for abbreviating the SCT’s examination.

That difference matters where a claim depends on numerous and connected disputes about contractual performance. The tribunal may have to separate questions which the parties’ informal accounts have run together, establish how several alleged instructions affected the original agreement, and examine technical complaints about the resulting work. As those matters multiply, an abbreviated examination carries a greater risk of overlooking a material distinction or leaving conflicting evidence insufficiently tested. Further particulars, documents, technical evidence or additional hearings may then be needed to give the disputed matters adequate attention. The tribunal must provide the examination which a fair determination requires. Nevertheless, the time and expense of doing so may diminish the advantages of its simplified procedure, while the restrictions on factual appeals continue to apply.

It is against that background that I understood the balance described in Parliament. As the then-Senior Minister of State explained, widening access had to be balanced against preserving effective and swift redress for small claims. He identified the increased caseload and more complicated legal issues which an overly broad jurisdiction could introduce, while noting that the ordinary civil courts remained available (see the Parliamentary debates cited at [20] above). The suitability of the claims admitted to the SCT therefore mattered to its ability to provide the very advantages for which access was sought. I accordingly gave weight to that concern when considering which reading of the valuation rule better fitted the SCTA as a whole.

In the present context, that concern favoured retaining the contract’s value for a final instalment which remained part of the progressive payment arrangement. After all, Parliament had already selected that measure for interim progress payments. As explained at [8] above, the language also accommodates payment for progress through the final stage to completion. Further, where instalments are payable on account of an overall price, the last instalment remains payable for the same agreed works. Earlier payments need not have settled complaints about those works, and the SCT may therefore still have to determine those complaints finally through its simplified procedure. The absence of an earlier claim or any further claim for the price does not remove that possibility. Accordingly, in my view, the continuing connection between the instalments and contractual performance gave greater support to applying the same measure throughout the arrangement than to changing it when the last payment was reached.

That reading also permits coherent treatment of the final instalment under the SCTA and the SOPA, notwithstanding the different consequences for access identified at [14]–[15] above. Under the SOPA, inclusion within “progress payment” permits recourse to provisional adjudication, subject to the Act’s other requirements. Under the SCTA, inclusion requires reference to the contract’s value and may consequently place the claim beyond the SCT’s monetary jurisdiction. Those consequences follow from the different functions of the provisions. The SOPA facilitates payment pending final resolution, while the SCTA provides final resolution through a simplified procedure whose availability reflects the balance just described.

I was accordingly strongly of the view that “progress payment” as used in s 2(2)(b) includes the final instalment under an arrangement providing for progressive payment until completion. I recognise, however, that this conclusion resolves a genuine ambiguity. The language, statutory context and extrinsic materials did not yield an unequivocal answer. Applying the ordinary principles of interpretation therefore required a reasoned choice between readings which each had some support, and the argument developed above explains why I preferred the broader reading.

On that interpretation, the contract’s value would govern a claim for the concluding instalment even where the contractor had brought no earlier claim, the present proceedings would finally settle all disputes over the price, and the claim and the dispute it raised were factually straightforward. As explained at [31]–[33] above, the possibility of having to resolve a complicated dispute through the SCT’s simplified procedure bore on the interpretation I preferred. Having adopted that interpretation, however, I did not understand s 2(2)(b) to require a further assessment of complexity before its valuation rule could apply. A contractor could not therefore avoid that valuation merely by inviting the tribunal to find that its particular dispute was simple. To permit that would make the rule’s application depend on weighing afresh a consideration already taken into account in determining its scope. This illustrates the function of rules discussed by Raz: they resist re-examination with a view to possible revision on every occasion to which they apply (see Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality (Oxford University Press, 2nd Ed, 2009) at pp 31–33). The remaining question was therefore whether the Contractor’s demand was for a concluding instalment under such an arrangement.

Here, the Contractor, in my view, relied on that arrangement. As stated at [5] above, its representative repeatedly confirmed that it claimed under one contract comprising the original agreement and the alleged variations, while its variation invoice repeated the original progressive payment terms. For present purposes, I therefore approached its demand as one for the balance said to remain payable under those terms. That involved no finding that the variations had been agreed or that the terms entitled the Contractor to payment following termination. Nevertheless, applying s 2(2)(b) to the claim as advanced would give it the asserted contractual value of $43,157. That exceeded both the ordinary limit of $20,000 and the extended limit of $30,000. Accordingly, even written consent under s 5(4) would not resolve the difficulty, despite the amount demanded being only $14,129.12.

I should also mention, in this connection, a somewhat curious feature of the SCTA’s treatment of counterclaims. The Contractor had described its demand as a “counterclaim”, and s 10 makes separate provision for monetary counterclaims falling outside the tribunal’s jurisdiction. Either party may apply within the prescribed time to a court having jurisdiction for a transfer. Under s 10(2), that court may transfer the whole proceedings, transfer only the counterclaim, or direct that the whole proceedings be heard in the SCT. Section 10(4) then provides that, where no such application is made or the court directs that the whole proceedings remain in the SCT, the tribunal has jurisdiction to hear them “despite any other provisions of this Act”.

Read plainly, those words appear capable of admitting a monetary counterclaim many times greater than the ordinary limits, since s 10 itself specifies no ceiling. A demand which could not be pursued independently might therefore come within the SCT’s jurisdiction because the opposing party had first brought a smaller claim there. The first claim would, in that sense, permit the SCT to hear a much larger demand which the other party could not have brought there on its own. That seems to me a rather curious consequence for legislation establishing a forum for small claims. Granted, either party’s opportunity to seek transfer qualifies that consequence, but it does nonetheless leave unanswered how far the counterclaim jurisdiction extends if neither party invokes that opportunity.

There is, moreover, a further question about what the tribunal could order when exercising that jurisdiction. Section 35(2) limits the value of a money order or work order to the ordinary limit, or the extended limit where s 5(4) applies. Whether the overriding words in s 10(4) also displace that restriction would require consideration. It would therefore be premature to conclude, merely from the conferral of jurisdiction to hear a counterclaim, that the tribunal could award an amount of any size. The relationship between those provisions leaves the full effect of s 10 less immediately clear than its broad language might suggest.

In this case, however, the Contractor had commenced Claim No 16078 as a separate claim. It had not actually lodged a counterclaim in the Employer’s proceedings under r 10 of the Small Claims Tribunals Rules. Calling its demand a “counterclaim” therefore did not, of itself, engage s 10. I recognise that this distinction might seem technical if the provision were intended to permit the SCT to determine the parties’ competing demands together irrespective of value. On that understanding, the manner of filing could substantially affect jurisdiction over the same underlying dispute. However, that consequence gives even further reason to examine s 10(4)’s intended reach carefully.

My decision to transfer

Ultimately, however, I was of the view that I did not need to settle those questions about jurisdiction before deciding where the proceedings should continue. Section 7 of the SCTA permits a tribunal, despite s 5, to transfer proceedings where it considers that the claim ought to be dealt with by another court. As I explained in JFT and another v JFV [2026] SGSCT 5 at [28]–[30], that power may be exercised without first determining whether the tribunal has jurisdiction. The jurisdictional issue affecting the Contractor’s claim therefore gave me reason to consider transfer. It remains necessary, however, to explain why the Employer’s claim should accompany it.

I proceeded on the footing that the Employer’s claim was within jurisdiction. He sought repayment and rectification for allegedly defective or incomplete performance. He also did not seek rescission. Nor, obviously, was he seeking a progress payment due to him under the agreement. His use of an instalment already paid to quantify the refund sought (see [4] above) did not, of itself, bring his claim within s 2(2)(b). Accordingly, the difficulty affecting the Contractor’s claim supplied no automatic reason to transfer the Employer’s claim. Whether it should also be transferred depended on what deciding it separately would involve.

Deciding the Employer’s allegation that work remained incomplete would first require a finding about what the Contractor had agreed to perform. That would bring into consideration the parties’ disagreement over the alleged variations. The Employer maintained that some items were already included in the original price or had never been requested, while the Contractor maintained that he had instructed changes and additional work. If an item was already included, that could affect both whether the Contractor remained obliged to complete it and whether it could charge separately for doing so. Thus, a finding needed to resolve the Employer’s complaint could also bear directly on the Contractor’s demand for payment.

That disagreement about the scope of the works also bore directly on the Employer’s account of why work had stopped. According to him, the Contractor suspended the original works while demanding payment for disputed variations, and that is what caused him to terminate the contract. To assess that account, it would be necessary to consider what work and payment obligations then remained outstanding, and whether the Contractor was entitled to suspend performance pending the payment it demanded. Findings on those matters could, in turn, affect its entitlement to the balance claimed. The scope of the works, the alleged variations and the cessation of work therefore formed connected parts of the parties’ accounts which would have to be examined in resolving both claims.

I could, of course, examine those matters so far as necessary to decide the Employer’s claim. Doing so would, however, produce a final decision involving matters which also bore on a claim that might have to proceed elsewhere. The later court could then be asked to decide whether findings necessary to the SCT’s decision bound the parties through issue estoppel (see The Royal Bank of Scotland NV v TT International Ltd [2015] 5 SLR 1104 at [98]–[104]). And, where an issue remained open, much of the same evidence might have to be presented again, with the attendant risk of different findings. The parties could therefore face two sets of largely duplicative proceedings, together with a further dispute about which matters the second court remained free to decide.

I should emphasise that this conclusion involved no acceptance of either party’s allegations. Whether the variations had been agreed, whether work was defective or incomplete, and whether either party had breached the contract remained for determination on the evidence. The connection between those disputed matters only supplied the reason for having the claims determined together. And, to be absolutely clear, a respondent’s assertion of a larger demand would not, by itself, justify transferring a claimant’s claim falling within the SCT’s jurisdiction. Here, my specific reason for transferring both claims arose from the particular questions they shared and the practical difficulties of deciding those questions in separate proceedings.

Conclusion

For these reasons, I ordered under s 7 of the SCTA that Claim Nos 15079 and 16078 of 2026 be transferred to the Magistrates’ Courts. I did not ultimately resolve the question of whether the Contractor’s claim fell outside the SCT’s monetary jurisdiction and also made no findings on either claim’s merits. The parties’ respective entitlements remained for determination in that court.