Quantum Meruit in UK Law

It is common ground that the correct approach to the amount to be paid by way of a quantum meruit where there is no valid and subsisting contract between the parties is to ask whether the defendant has been unjustly enriched and, if so, to what extent. In such a case, while it is no doubt relevant to have regard to the benefit to the defendant, the focus is not on the benefit to the defendant in the way in which it is where there is no such contract.

Plainly, it would be inconsistent with this long-established principle to award remuneration in such circumstances as of right on the basis of a quantum meruit claim. But the principle does not altogether exclude the possibility that an equitable allowance might be made in respect of services rendered.

The idea of such a fee being excluded, it follows that the question of the amount to which the Appellant is entitled is left at large and the Court must do the best it can to arrive at a figure which seems to it fair and reasonable to both parties on all the facts of the case. Evidence of this nature is admissible to show what the parties had in mind, however indeterminately, with regard to the basis of remuneration.

It seems to me plain that Mr Cobbe is entitled to a quantum meruit payment for his services in obtaining the planning permission. He did not intend to provide his services gratuitously, nor did Mrs Lisle-Mainwaring understand the contrary. She knew he was providing his services in the expectation of becoming the purchaser of the property under an enforceable contract.

Such a claim is in the nature of a quasi-contractual claim. For instance, if the negotiations between the vendor and the purchaser have been duly concluded and a binding executory agreement has been achieved, different considerations may arise. I think as at present advised that it ought then to be held that he is also in breach of his contract with the commission agent, that is, of some term which can properly be implied.

If he had asked himself who was the successful party, before segregation of the effective costs of proving the quantum meruit claim, he would in my judgment have had to answer that it was the claimants who recovered more than the defendants had ever offered and thus it must be the claimants who were the successful party. The question would then be what proportion, if any, of their costs should they recover.