In June of this year, the City of London Law Society (CLLS) published an update to its standard form letter of intent. 

Letters of intent are a useful means in the construction industry for allowing works to get underway, or to navigate uncertainty around initial project start dates, while the main contract is still under negotiation. 

The previous CLLS letter of intent was created in 2007 and it is clear that the new update has been heavily influenced by the new 2024 edition of the JCT suite of contracts plus recent changes to legislation. First, the new version attempts to be more friendly to new users by moving some key information into a table at the end of the letter, titled the “Particulars”. Whilst this change can be beneficial in allowing for more efficient and clear data input, it comes at the cost of nearly doubling the length of the letter.   

Other notable changes are intended to capture the shift in law following the Building Safety Act 2022[1] and general themes across the industry towards improved health and safety. For example, the contractor now expressly needs to comply with obligations imposed pursuant to its roles under The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015[2] and the updated Building Regulations 2010.[3] 

However, if a project involves a higher-risk building (as defined under the Building Safety Act 2022), then even this new version will benefit from the insertion of additional clauses. The new CLLS letter does not clearly deal with responsibility for the gateway process, and while the new regime for building safety is still unfolding, there remains a perennial danger of problems arising that the authors of the new letter could not have foreseen. For example, the recent problems experienced by projects where those providing approved building control services had failed to register in time with the Health & Safety Executive.

Overall, the update to CLLS precedent is a welcome change in modernising a useful document which allows parties to have a written agreement in-place to deal with ongoing issues, either on-site or at large.  It will be interesting to see how the new 2024 letter of intent is received, adopted and maybe even adapted. 

To see a copy of CLLS’ 2024 letter of intent, please see the link to their website here.[4] 

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/contents

[2] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/51/contents

[3] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/2214/contents

[4] CLLS Letter of Intent - 2024 Edition