JCT 2016 contracts have been withdrawn: what now?

The dates

JCT's 2026 price list still carries the 2016 forms, under a warning that the withdrawal date has passed and that they are available only during the transition period.

What JCT advises

JCT's notice sets out three things:

• If the procurement route or main contract is not yet decided, use the 2024 edition.
• If you need 2016 contracts, main contracts or sub-contracts, buy them and any ancillary documents as soon as possible, so you have them before the transition ends.
• Sub-contracts follow the main contract. Where the main contract is a 2016 form, the matching 2016 sub-contracts will also be needed down the supply chain.

JCT says the transition period is designed to help the industry complete projects that have already started, or have been tendered on, 2016 contracts.

If your project is mid-tender

Tendered on a 2016 form. This is the case the transition period is for. Buy the contract and its ancillary documents now. After 31 December 2026 they cannot be bought in any format.

Not yet issued. Change the tender documents to the 2024 edition before they go out. The price of MW 2024 on JCT's 2026 price list is £50 plus VAT, the same as MW 2016.

Out to tender, and you want to switch. JCT does not give specific advice for this case. The contract terms are part of what each contractor prices, so any change of edition has to go to every tenderer, in writing, before the return date.

Already signed. JCT's notice is about which forms you can buy. It treats projects in progress on 2016 contracts as continuing, and says nothing to suggest a signed 2016 contract stops working.

What changed in the 2024 edition

JCT's information booklet groups the changes into four themes. In outline, and only as JCT describes them:

• Modernising and streamlining. Gender-neutral language across the suite. Specific provisions for giving notices by email. Guidance on electronic execution. Improved notification drafting for extensions of time, with the interim assessment period cut from 12 to 8 weeks. Relevant events now include epidemics, and the change in law event is wider, taking account of published government guidance. The antiquities provision widened to cover unexploded ordnance, contaminated material and asbestos. Fluctuations options moved out of the printed documents onto JCT's website. The parties can now choose their own nominating body or appointer for adjudication and arbitration.
• New for 2024. A Target Cost Contract (TCC 2024).
• Legislative changes. Provisions for the principal designer and principal contractor under Part 2A of the Building Regulations 2010, alongside the existing CDM provisions. Termination payment provisions referring expressly to the Construction Act payment regime. New insolvency grounds reflecting the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020.
• Future proofing. Three provisions that were previously supplemental are now mandatory: a collaborative working article, a sustainable development and environmental considerations clause, and a clause on notifying and negotiating disputes.

Not every change reaches every form. JCT's own comparison table shows that Minor Works grants extensions of time for delay beyond the contractor's control and has no list of relevant events. The new relevant events therefore matter most under Intermediate, Standard and Design and Build.

A client is treated as complying with the requirement in paragraph (1) if, instead of appointing a person for the purposes of these Regulations, they certify, in writing, that the person who is the CDM principal designer, or, as the case may be, the CDM principal contractor, is treated as appointed as the principal designer or, as the case may be, the principal contractor, for the purposes of these Regulations.

JCT's booklet cites this provision as the reason the 2024 forms carry cross-undertakings covering both sets of duties. The dutyholder roles are explained in the Building Regulations principal designer.

What this means for you

If a contract is being prepared for your project now, it should be a 2024 edition JCT form, or a Home Owner 2021 form if you live in the house. If a 2016 form turns up in a tender pack issued after 31 March 2026, ask why. If your project was tendered on one, buy the documents before the end of the year.

See which building contract for the current forms and their prices. Parallel Architecture prepares building contracts as part of tender and contract administration.