Case Law

The Ministry of Justice has published plans for the merger of the LVT (in its various forms, RAC, RPT, etc) into the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber).In outline, it is proposed that the Property Chamber will cover:

Restrictive covenants are, in broad terms, contractual restrictions imposed on the current user/owner of land, often imposed by a former owner of the same land (e.g. Mr A sells a field to Mr B, but includes a covenant preventing Mr B from building flats on it).

The UT held that the LVT had erred in even considering the alleged use of the reserve fund;

The LVT had found for the landlord on the substantive issues, but held that it was not entitled to recover the legal costs under the terms of the lease as it did not use external solicitors, but had in-house lawyers.

The parties were involved in a service charge dispute. Before the LVT hearing started, the landlord applied for an adjournment on the basis that there was an outstanding appeal to the UT(LC) that it was involved in which it had been criticised by the LVT for a number of things that were now to be considered in this case.

The LVT had, during the course of a service charge dispute, disallowed certain costs relating to the provision of television signals and had made an order under s.20C, LTA 1985, preventing the landlord from recovering its legal costs. 

Friends Provident owned the freehold of Dolphin Square, London. It contained over 1200 flats, together with leisure facilities. A headlease as granted to a third party who, in turn, had granted an underlease to Westbrook. 

Only houses can be enfranchised under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 and, when deciding if a property is a house, the key test is whether it is a “house reasonably so called”. 

Section 47, Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 applies to all demands for rent (whether ground rent or “normal” rent), service charges and administration charges.

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 gives the LVT power to vary residential leases. It can do this if, inter alia, the requisite majority of leaseholders agree and no-more than the specified minority object (s.37). The key provision is s.37(5), which provides that, in a building with more than eight leases, an application “shall only be made” if it is not opposed be more than 10% of the leaseholders and supported by at least 75%.

Report of the case Aitken and Aitken v Park South Management Limited, case reference LON00BJLAM20110118, decided in the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal on 20/02/2012. The case of Aitken and Aitken v Park South Management Limited involved determination of costs incurred in relation to an application under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Ac 2002.