A.M.O. Rifat Holdings Pty Ltd v Dib: Lessons for Expert Quantity Surveyors
The Victorian Court of Appeal's decision in A.M.O. Rifat Holdings Pty Ltd v Dib [2026] VSCA 124 is likely to become an important authority on quantum meruit.
Most commentary will focus on the legal principles. What stood out to me was something else entirely: the Court's treatment of the evidence.
Read from the perspective of an expert quantity surveyor, the judgment says a great deal about what good valuation evidence looks like, and where it falls short.
Lesson 1 – Invoices are not an expert opinion
At [32], the Court noted that the builder's schedule identified invoice recipients and invoice amounts, but did not identify the contractual stage to which the invoices related or whether the work had already been paid for.
Invoices are source documents. They are not expert evidence.
The task of an expert quantity surveyor is not to gather project records and place them before the Court. It is to examine those records, draw conclusions from them and explain the reasoning behind those conclusions.
Lesson 2 – Reconcile the evidence to the work
The owners described the builder's material as "an unsorted and unexplained list of trade invoices".
The Court reached much the same view. At [54], it found there was no proper factual basis on which the Tribunal could have "disentangled from the undifferentiated mass of invoices put in evidence" the amount attributable to the incomplete stages.
That observation goes to the heart of expert quantity surveying.
Project records need to be reconciled to the contractual scope, the relevant contractual stage, the work actually completed, any defective or incomplete work, payments already made, and the valuation ultimately expressed.
Without that process, invoices remain accounting records. They do not become valuation evidence.
That reconciliation is not an administrative exercise. It is the analysis that turns project documents into evidence capable of supporting an independent valuation opinion.
Lesson 3 – Cost is not value
At [53], the Court recognised that quantum meruit claims are commonly assessed by reference to "the charges commonly made for like services", with the contract price operating as a cap on recovery.
Even so, the Court concluded that the builder's evidence "was simply incapable of establishing the value to the owners of the work that the builder had performed, but to which it did not have a contractual right to payment".
That distinction matters.
An invoice may show that money was spent. It does not establish what work was carried out, whether it fell within the contractual scope, whether it formed part of the permanent works, whether it was complete or defective, whether it had already been paid for, or what it was reasonably worth.
Those are valuation questions. They require analysis, not simply documentation.
Lesson 4 – Expert evidence is more than measurement
An expert quantity surveyor's role extends well beyond measurement or preparing schedules of invoices.
It involves analysing the project records, reconciling the evidence, applying an appropriate valuation methodology and expressing an independent opinion that assists the Court.
That demands more than quantity surveying expertise. It also requires an understanding of the standards expected of expert evidence.
Ultimately, an opinion carries weight because of the quality of the evidence supporting it and the reasoning that links the two.
Final observations
This decision should not be read as suggesting that different evidence would necessarily have produced a different result.
The Court also relied on the way the case had been run. It found the Tribunal's error had been induced by the builder's own approach, concluded it would not be in the interests of justice to allow the builder to present its case again on a different evidentiary basis, and left the findings on defective work undisturbed.
Even so, the judgment offers useful guidance on the preparation of expert valuation evidence. For me, the enduring point is the distinction between project records and expert evidence.
Project records tell the Court what exists. Expert evidence explains what those records demonstrate and why they matter.
That is the role of an expert quantity surveyor.
It is not to collate invoices, measure quantities or assemble schedules. It is to analyse the evidence, reconcile it with the facts and explain the conclusions so the Court can determine what work was undertaken, what benefit was conferred and what that work was reasonably worth.
That, in my view, is one of the defining characteristics of expert quantity surveying.
Case: https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sign.cgi/au/cases/vic/VSCA/2026/124
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