Case Law

Summary

The First Tier Tribunal is entitled to rely on an applicant to send its application, but not the FTT’s subsequent decision, to the respondents to that application. Time will not start running for a party to apply for a permission to appeal until the FTT has itself provided a copy of its decision to that party.

Summary

The Upper Tribunal gave guidance as to how an assessment of reasonableness of insurance premiums under s.19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 ought to be approached.

The tenants gave a s.13 notice in 2004, but the tenants did not register it against the landlord’s title. The purchase price was agreed in 2006 and the outstanding terms of acquisition were to be determined by the LVT. Before the matter could be heard, the landlord transferred the freehold to his wife and she then transferred it back to him. When the matter came before the tribunal, the landlord disputed jurisdiction.

This was a claim to acquire the freehold of a house under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. In 1991, the original tenants were granted a 99-year lease at a modest premium and nominal ground rent of £45 per year. The lease provided for a review of the ground rent at 25-year intervals. The review provision provided that the new rent should be a sum “representing the open market letting value of the land” as if it were a vacant site that had not been built on and which had planning permission for residential development.

Summary

The landlord appealed against the Upper Tribunal’s determination of the premium payable for the freehold under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967.

Summary

The Court of Appeal (McFarlane, Lewison and McCombe LLJ) upheld the trial judge’s decision, on a summary judgment application by the freeholder, that it had not contravened section 4(3) of the Defective Premises Act 1972 because the lack of a handrail and the steepness of stairs in the common parts, although a breach of planning regulations, were not a breach of the repair covenants in the lease and, therefore, not “relevant defect”.

Summary

The FTT erred in determining the premium payable for a new lease under the 1993 Act.

Summary

An appeal against FTT’s decision, that a management agreement was a QLTA, was rejected. Costs of portage, and ancillary payroll costs, remitted to FTT for rehearing.

The relevant factual background is both interesting and a bit unusual.  The Respondent, Ms Oliver, held a long lease of a flat that she had acquired from the Council pursuant to the right to buy.  Under that lease she covenanted to pay by way of a service charge a contribution to the cost of carrying out major repairs to the building containing her flat.  The terms of Ms Oliver’s lease required her to contribute a “fair proportion” of the service charge expenses “incurred” by the Council.  That proportion fell to be determined by a representative of the Council.

The Council entered into a contract to undertake major repair works, including repairing the external cladding of the building containing Ms Oliver’s flat.  Through the Electricity and Gas (Community Energy Saving Programme) Order 2009 (CESP Order) energy suppliers were incentivised as part of the government’s policy of reducing carbon emissions to finance works that would have the effect of improving the energy efficiency of domestic energy users in arears of low income.  In furtherance of the CESP Order NPower entered into an agreement with the Council whereby the energy supplier contributed to the cost of specified works undertaken by the Council which had the effect of improving energy efficiency.  One such class of works was the repair works to the external cladding of the building containing Ms Oliver’s flat.  The agreement quantified Npower’s contribution by reference to a specified price per flat.  The Council used the total fund provided by NPower under its agreement across the entire project of works.  The works extended into areas that were not classified as “arears of low income” for the purposes of the CESP Order.  It followed that those arears of “low income”, which included the area of Ms Oliver’s flat, did not exclusively receive the benefit of the NPower funding.  Whilst the Council recognised that this was the effect of its decision to spread the benefit of the cost more widely, it achieved a similar end, it said, by not charging Ms Oliver (and other like leaseholders) the full cost of all expenses otherwise recoverable in respect of the major works, for example the cost of project managing the programme of works.

The Upper Tribunal determined the validity of an estimated service charge demand in light of the decision of London Borough of Southwark v Woelke [2013] UKUT 0349 (LC)

The Upper Tribunal determined whether costs incurred by a headlessee in providing energy to apartments held on individual underleases were recoverable in circumstances where the systems for metering energy use had malfunctioned.