Service charges
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Intermediate landlords will have to justify amounts paid into a freeholder’s sinking fund, when seeking to pass such costs on to their own tenants
Where a residential service charge is payable before the relevant costs are incurred, no greater amount than is reasonable is so payable: section 19(2) Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
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Can a landlord recover the cost of legal proceedings against its tenants through its service charge?
Can a landlord recover expenditure incurred in contesting legal proceedings against the leaseholders of flats in a residential building through its service charge? The point has cropped up in a…
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How far back can a tenant go when challenging service charges?
Section 27A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 endowed the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal with jurisdiction to consider residential service charges and to decide whether a service charge is payable…
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Were service charges payable when a management company had failed to supply the audited accounts that it had covenanted to provide?
The litigation in Elysian Fields Management Co Ltd v Nixon [2015] UKUT 427 (LC); [2015] PLSCS 260 concerned a lease that required the tenant to pay estimated service charges to…
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What are the consultation requirements when landlords enter into framework agreements?
A number of local authorities and social landlords award contracts for work under framework agreements negotiated with their suppliers. A framework agreement is not an agreement under which goods will…
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The Supreme Court has refused to rewrite the service charge provisions in a lease under the guise of interpreting them
The Supreme Court decision in Arnold v Britton [2015] UKSC 36 is one of the most important cases to have been decided since Rainy Sky SA v Kookmin Bank [2011]…
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Invoices that name two or more companies without identifying the landlord will not satisfy the requirements of section 47.
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 gives tenants the right to know who their landlords are and where to serve notices or proceedings on them. It provides that demands for…
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A general sweeper clause did not offer a landlord carte blanche to recover the cost of legal proceedings against its tenants as part of its service charge.
Historically, the courts tend to interpret sweeper clauses in service charge provisions narrowly. Union Pension Trustees Ltd v Slavin [2015] UKUT 103 (LC); [2015] PLSCS 150 is no exception to…
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The First-tier Tribunal tackles an application for dispensation post-Daejan
The Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003 restrict the amount that tenants can be required to pay for work about which they have not been properly consulted to £250.…
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Section 47 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 did not apply to service charge demands issued by a management company that was not the tenant’s landlord
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 gives tenants the right to know who their landlords are and where to serve notices or proceedings on them. Therefore, demands for payment must…
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A holiday lodge was not a dwelling because it was not a building
As more and more portable accommodation becomes available, which can be assembled – as opposed to being constructed – on site, legal questions are bound to arise. Caddick v Whitsand…
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Landlords have more to do to justify charges for improvements, as opposed to repairs
When a landlord carries out repairs, it is usually fulfilling an obligation to its tenants. Failure to do so would mean that it was in breach of covenant – and…