Renologist Pte. Ltd. v LONG SHIWEI KENNETH & Anor

Facts

Mr Long Shiwei Kenneth and Ms Koon Sze Yun, Vanessa, a married couple, engaged Renologist Pte Ltd to renovate their HDB flat in Potong Pasir. After a June 2023 contract, they signed a new contract on 14 July 2023 for $79,415.64. Its third progress payment, $31,766.26, was due at measurement of carpentry. The contractor's separate terms and conditions, including a clause letting it stop work if payment was withheld, had been signed with the June contract but were not attached to the July one.

The owners paid $39,707.82 in total. From late September 2023 the contractor asked for the third payment, while sending a series of revised quotations with different payment figures, none of which was agreed. At a meeting on 22 October 2023 the parties agreed to suspend payment timelines until a revised contract was signed, and work resumed. On 25 October 2023 the contractor stopped work and left. The owners appointed another contractor, Life Style Home Pte Ltd (LSH), which handed over the flat, according to them, on 29 November 2023.

The contractor sued in Magistrate's Court Originating Claim No 4482 of 2024 for $13,840.22 as the unpaid value of work, or alternatively on a quantum meruit. The owners counterclaimed for the extra cost of completing the works and for $10,037.70 in rent caused, they said, by the contractor's delays.

Issues

1. Whether the contractor was entitled to $13,840.22 under the contract or on a quantum meruit.
2. Whether the contractor was entitled to stop work on 25 October 2023, or instead repudiated the contract, and what damages followed.
3. Whether the owners could rely on an oral tenancy and prove breach of implied terms on timely completion, making the contractor liable for their rent.

Holding

District Judge Sim Mei Ling dismissed the claim in full. On the counterclaims, the owners were awarded only nominal damages of $100 for the contractor's repudiatory breach, with interest at 5.33% per annum, and the counterclaim for rent was dismissed. Costs were left for agreement or submissions.

Reasoning

The contractor showed no contractual basis for its claim: it priced its work on an unagreed later quotation, not the July contract. A restitutionary quantum meruit was available only to an innocent party, and the contractor was the party in breach. It also failed to prove the value of its work, relying on a designer who had not visited the site after 22 October and on subcontractor invoices it tried to match to items only in closing submissions.

The judge found carpentry measurements had been taken, so the third payment was due by 30 September 2023. But a contractor has no general right to suspend work for non-payment unless the contract provides it. The terms and conditions were not part of the July contract and could not be implied, as they conflicted with its payment schedule. Nor was the non-payment repudiatory: half the price had been paid, the contractor sought sums never agreed, and the owners said they would have paid the contract figure. Having agreed to suspend payment on 22 October, the contractor could not insist on it three days later. Stopping work was therefore a repudiation, which the owners accepted.

The owners proved they paid LSH $74,980, but not that all of it was for work within the July contract or for proven defects. The recoverable portion plus what they had paid the contractor came to less than the July contract price, so they showed no extra loss and received nominal damages.

The oral tenancy was not shown to be illegal and the rent was proved. But the owners never explained why the pleaded terms should be implied, the first work schedule was described at the time as only an estimate, and the delays were partly caused by their own changes.

From the judgment