Know your rights

摘要

Collateral warranties used to be the only effective way of protecting subsequent building owners and occupiers from defective construction work. Then along came the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act, which applied to contracts entered into, on or after 11 May 2000. This was meant to help the construction industry by doing away with the cost and bureaucracy of processing large numbers of collateral warranties. The act enables contracting parties to give benefits to those not party to the contract, which those third parties can then enforce.