Landlord and tenant – Service charges – Section 21B of Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 – Requirement for summary of tenant’s rights and obligations to accompany service charge demand – Service charge demands made after commencement of section 21B but relating to items of expenditure incurred before that date – Whether such demands required to comply with section 21B – Leasehold valuation tribunal finding no such requirement – Appeal allowed
The appellant tenant applied to the leasehold valuation tribunal (LVT), under section 27A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, for a determination of the amount of service charge that she was liable to pay to the respondent landlord for various years. She contended that a number of items for which the respondent had charged since 2002 should be disallowed on the ground that it had not complied with the requirement, in section 21B(1) of the 1985 Act, to provide a summary of the tenant’s right and obligations together with the relevant service charge demand. A central issue was whether that requirement, which was introduced by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 and came into force in October 2007, applied to service charge demands that were made after October 2007 but related to items of expenditure incurred before that date.
The LVT took the view that items demanded before the commencement of section 21B were recoverable in full, even though the demand was made after section 21B had come into force and did not comply with it. The appellant appealed.
Decision: The appeal was allowed.
The fact that the items of expenditure for which service charge was demanded were incurred prior to 1 October 2007 did not excuse a demand made after that date from having to comply with section 21B. Section 21B applied to all demands for service charge made after the commencement of section 21B, save in so far as such compliance was excused by the transitional provisions in the Service Charges (Summary of Rights and Obligations, and Transitional Provision)(England) Regulations 2007. The respondent’s failure to comply with section 21B in respect of certain items meant that those items were not yet payable in full but would become so once it served a new demand complying with that provision.
The appeal was determined on the written representations of the parties.
Sally Dobson, barrister
