A judge has backed a group of leaseholders in their dispute with a freehold management company, saying that the legal documentation they needed to fill in was confusing.
The dispute was between Assethold Limited, a property company that owned the freehold of a four-flat building in Welling, Kent, and 20 Upper Wickham RTM Company, a company formed by the lessees of the building.
The lessees had grouped together to exercise their rights to manage the property, and served legal notice on Assethold in June 2018.
Assethold served a counter-notice saying that the freeholder was not entitled to acquire the right to manage.
This is because the papers were filed in the name of one of the lessees, Sami Bakshish, and not by the RTM company.
According to today’s ruling, the law requires the notice to be filed in the name of the company, and not an individual.
Even so, the judge hearing the case, Judge Elizabeth Cooke, rejected Assethold’s argument, saying that the mistake was “forgivable”.
The application form was “ambiguous”, even though the law was not, she said.
“The layout and wording of the form may have given rise to some confusion,” the judgment said.
“The initial wording is addressed to “you” and not to the RTM Company… As it is, the reader might wonder who is ‘you’?
“Mr Bakshish put the wrong information in the first section of boxes (forgivably, I would say, because of the way the form is laid out and worded). But it is perfectly clear that what is intended is an application under section 84(3) of the 2002 Act.”
Therefore, she ruled that the application was effective and dismissed Assethold’s challenge.
Assethold Ltd v 20 Upper Wickham RTM Company Ltd
Upper Tribunal (Elizabeth Cooke, Upper Tribunal Judge) 27 November 2019
