The high court has reserved judgment in a £3.9m breach of contract claim against Persimmon.
The housebuilder was in court with developer Chartbrook this week over a multi-million-pound housing development in south
Chartbrook claims that a profit-share agreement on the scheme at
The housebuilder has already paid Chartbrook £721,000 as part of this agreement, which dates back to 2001.
The developer is now seeking the remaining £3.9m, which it believes it is still owed.
But Persimmon says that it has paid the correct sum and that if the court backs Chartbrook on the payment then there was a mistake in the original clause, which the developer knew about at the time but did not reveal.
It claims that the agreement should, therefore, be rectified.
Closing the nine-day hearing for Persimmon, Christopher Nugee QC said that if Chartbrook won it would be a “complete windfall”, contrary to what had previously been negotiated.
Chartbrook’s QC, Robert Miles, countered: “Persimmon’s case does not, and cannot, deal with the inherent improbability of asserting that Chartbrook was mistaken, or that its directors knew of the mistake: indeed, it is difficult to resist the impression that Persimmon’s approach has been taken to avoid having to confront these difficulties.”
Persimmon teamed up with Chartbrook in 2001 to develop and sell 100 flats on the former industrial site at
In return for supplying the site, Chartbrook said it had agreed that it would receive a share of the sale proceeds from the development once a predetermined trigger amount had been reached.
Judgment will be heard within the next fortnight.
