The claimant was engaged to carry out certain consultancy works by the defendant local housing authority. The finalised contract incorporated the conditions of engagement for building surveying services published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1981 (RICS conditions). The authority sought to terminate the contract by operating the one-month notice clause contained in the RICS conditions. That clause required no reason for the termination. The claimant brought proceedings, contending that the authority had wrongfully terminated the contract. It relied on the events at meetings and discussions to give rise to either a collateral contract or an estoppel that prevented the authority from terminating the contract without good cause. Alternatively, it argued that, applying settled principles, a term to that effect could be implied as a matter of law, or that the RICS termination clause was caught by s 3 of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and thus could not be applied. In relation to the latter, issues arose, in particular, as to the nature of 'written standard terms of business' for the purposes of s 3 of the Act.

The court ruled: