Sinclair Gardens Investments (Kensington) v Wisbey

Summary

Under s.60 of the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, a lessee seeking a lease extension is liable to pay the landlord’s reasonable legal and valuation costs. The UTLC in this appeal decided that s.60 costs may properly include solicitor’s costs of (i) drafting a counter-notice under s.45 of the Act, and (ii) instructing a valuer. However, the burden of proving that s.60 costs are reasonable falls on the landlord. In this case there were a number of other actual and potential lease extensions in the same block and the UTLC found that a reasonable landlord would have obtained a 20% discount from its solicitors for handling the ‘bulk’ work on a large number of claims. The Upper Tribunal therefore allowed the landlord to recover both items of costs referred to above, but reduced the total amount of s.60 costs by 20% to reflect a reasonable ‘bulk’ discount.