Landlord and tenant – Service charge – Written demand – Section 47(1) of Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 – Managing agent serving demands on respondent tenant – Demands giving name of landlord but address of agent – LVT determining that demands not complying with requirement in section 47(1) to give name and address of landlord – Whether that requirement met by provision of any address with which landlord having sufficient connection and at which able to receive communications – Appeal dismissed
The appellant landlord brought proceedings against the respondent tenant in the county court to recover unpaid service charges in respect of a residential flat. The matter was transferred to the leasehold valuation tribunal (LVT), which determined the matter in the exercise of its powers under section 27A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The respondent did not attend the hearing. The LVT raised an issue, of its own motion, as to whether the sums that the appellant sought to recover had been the subject of a written demand complying with the requirements of section 47(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. It concluded that they had not, since the relevant demands served by the appellant’s managing agent had contained the address of the agent rather than that of the landlord itself. The LVT determined that the sums demanded were not due, by reason of section 47(2).
On appeal from that decision, the appellant contended that where the name of the landlord was correctly given, the address of the landlord’s agent was sufficient to comply with section 47(1). It submitted that since the 1987 Act did not prescribe or limit the particular address to be used by the landlord, it was entitled to specify any address with which it had a sufficient connection and at which it could receive communications, such as the address of its managing agent.
Decision: The appeal was dismissed.
The statutory requirement to provide the address of the landlord in addition to its name was not imposed solely for the purpose of providing the tenant with an address at which he could communicate with the landlord. It had a wider purpose of enabling a tenant to know who his landlord was. A name might not be sufficient for that purpose; the provision of an address at which the landlord could be found assisted in the process of identification. Accordingly, the address of the landlord, for the purpose of section 47(1), was the place where the landlord could be found. In the case of an individual, that would be his place of residence or the place from which he carried on business. In the case of a company, it would be the company’s registered office or the place from which it carried on business. If there were more than one place of residence, or place from which the landlord carried on business, then, depending on the facts, any one such address might suffice.
The address of the appellant’s managing agent was not the landlord’s address because it was not the registered office of the appellant company or an address from which it carried on business. The fact that the records, files and accounts relating to the property were kept at that address did not make it an address from which the appellant itself carried on business. It followed that the LVT had decided the issue correctly.
Per curiam: It was generally inappropriate for a tribunal to take, on behalf of one side of a dispute between parties, a purely technical point that did not go to the merits or justice of the case. There was nothing to suggest that the tenant in the instant case had wished to know the address of the landlord or was concerned that the address given in the demands might not be the right one, or that he was prejudiced in any way by not knowing the address. If the appellant were now to serve a demand that gave the requisite address, then the service charges would be payable. No purpose had been served in imposing on the landlord the need to deal with the issue raised, to serve a fresh demand and, quite possibly, to take further proceedings for recovery.
The appeal was determined on the written representations of the parties.
Sally Dobson, barrister