The right to manage provisions in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 have been at the heart of a number of recent disputes in the tribunals. The legislation enables leaseholders to establish a right to manage company to assume responsibility for the day-to-day management of the blocks of flats in which they live, without having to prove that their landlord is at fault. Premises fall within the ambit of the scheme if they consist of a self-contained building or part of a building, with or without appurtenant property.
The issue that arose in Pineview Ltd v 83 Crampton Street RTM Co Ltd [2013] UKUT 598(LC) was whether a claim notice was defective because it was signed by the company’s solicitors – and not by an authorised member or officer of the right to manage company. The landlord also objected because the notice identified the premises by reference to their postal address without mentioning or describing any of the appurtenant property.
The landlord’s argument that the notice was defective was framed by reference to the form of notice prescribed by the Right to Manage (Prescribed Particulars and Forms) (England) Regulations 2010. The form includes the words “Signed by authority of the company” followed by an explanatory note, set out in square brackets, suggesting that the notice should bear the “[Signature of authorised member or officer]” and include the “[date]”.
The landlord argued that the notice should, as a result, be signed by a member or officer of the company and no one else – and pointed to the prescribed form of counternotice for landlords, which includes instructions for signature by an agent or by an authorised member or officer of the company on whose behalf the counternotice is given. Did the absence of such alternatives in the prescribed form of claim notice mean that the company’s notice had been wrongly signed?
It was worth a try. In St Ermins Property Co Limited v Tingay [2002] EWHC 1673 the court held that enfranchisement notices must be signed by tenants personally because section 99 of the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 requires notices under sections 13 and 42 to be signed “by the tenant by whom it is given” and other notices to be signed “by or on behalf of the tenant by whom it is given”.
However, the tribunal chose to distinguish St Ermins on the grounds that the ruling concerned a different legislative requirement, contained in primary, as opposed to secondary, legislation, giving explicit directions that could not be ignored. The tribunal did not believe that Parliament had intended to prescribe the identity of the signatory and ruled that the words in square brackets were inserted to help applicants complete the form. Consequently, signature by someone who is not a member or officer of the company is not a requirement, so long as the company has authorised the signatory to sign the form.
The tribunal went on to decide that the tenants’ notice need not specify whether the premises to which the claim relates do or do not include appurtenant property. The legislation made no such requirement and its structure and simplicity indicated that Parliament had sought to facilitate – as opposed to complicate – the process.
Allyson Colby is a property law consultant
