© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
Readers may recall I wrote an article outlining the reforms to practice and procedure brought in by the London Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) at the start of 2007 in relation to claims under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (‘the 1993 Act’) that appeared in issue 32 of News On the Block.
The start of 2008 is a good time to reflect on these changes and also to look ahead to some changes to come. The reforms brought in by the Central London LVT, particularly allowing the parties to defer listing by mutual consent for three months, seem to have reduced the administrative burden on the Central London Tribunal and it appears cases are being listed faster.
However, I have often thought the simplest way of easing the burden at the Tribunal in relation to leasehold reform applications (the bulk of which are protective because of the strict time limits involved) might be better achieved by a piece of legislative reform.
One simple idea (if legislative reform can ever be described as simple) would be to reform the provisions of sections 24 and 48 of the 1993 Act in a similar manner to the way in which The Regulatory Reform (Business Tenancies) (England and Wales) Order 2003 (SI/2003/3096) changed the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 in relation to business tenancies, i.e. by amending the 1993 Act so the parties could, by written agreement, extend the deadline for applying to the tribunal.
Only if one of the parties refused to agree to extend the deadline would there be a need to make a ‘protective’ application. The impact of this would be only cases incapable of settlement by negotiation would go to the tribunal.
Another area that causes concern amongst practitioners is the extent to which practice and procedure varies between the five LVT regions.
Any readers that attended the LEASE conference in May 2007 will recall one of the speakers was Robert Long, the Chair of the Southern Rent Assessment Panel (Southern LVT). He mentioned that the Southern LVT would be prepared to grant adjournments and often did so when parties had requested this.
Those practitioners familiar with Central London will be aware that adjournments are rarely granted (only in exceptional circumstances) and that the Tribunal has introduced a new system under which applications for adjournments must be heard on the Wednesday of the week prior to the week during which the hearing is scheduled to take place. Likewise the regional tribunals issue directions in different formats (and often with different requirements).
It is sometimes hard to explain to clients why there is such a great variation in the procedural approach taken by each regional LVT.
The solution to this no doubt lies in the proposed reforms to the Tribunals Service that are to be brought in under the Tribunals Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.
These changes were announced in the government consultation paper ‘Transforming Tribunals’ which was published on 28 November 2007 by the Ministry of Justice. The consultation lasts until 22 February 2008 and for those interested and want to make comments the consultation paper can be found at: http://www.tribunals.gov.uk
The consultation paper sets out a vision for a the Tribunals Service (established in April 2006) that eventually will combine all of the many and different tribunals dealing with diverse matters such as employment, immigration and the matters dealt with by the lands and other tribunals into one central body. The combined Tribunal Service will have two levels or ‘tiers.’ In relation to the functions familiar to readers as they relate to property, the proposal is that the jurisdiction of the Residential Property Tribunal Service (‘RPTS’) – comprising the LVT (subsidiary to the Lands Tribunal) will transfer to the First tier of the Tribunal Service and the Lands Tribunal will transfer to the second, or ‘Upper tier.’ The administrative functions of the RPTS will also transfer and be dealt with centrally at the Tribunal Service. The Tribunal Service will be divided into ‘chambers’ each dealing with a particular specialism.
The combined tribunal will attempt to have one set of procedural rules – although these will no doubt take some time to be developed. The idea is that a more streamlined Tribunal Service will (where appropriate) be able to direct more of its resources towards areas of need and where matters require certain experts to be appointed to the panel the idea is that the pool of available expertise will be wider.
This may well address some of the concerns expressed above in the longer term. However, in the meantime, we will have to continue to deal with the varying regional approaches with the attendant frustrations that this can bring when attempting to explain to a client that what is possible or is accepted practice in one LVT region is often not accepted or possible in another.