Residential service charges and the duty to consul

0370 270 6000

Search Mobile

collapse

already registered?

Please sign in with your existing account details.

Email address

Password

need to register?

Register to access exclusive content, sign up to receive our updates and personalise your experience on brownejacobson.com.

Privacy statement - Terms and conditions

Forgotten your password?

collapseSign

Home

Insights & events

Resources

Blogs

Residential service charges and the duty to consult

6 March 2013

The Supreme Court has granted a landlord dispensation from the service charge consultation requirements (the ‘Requirements’) contained in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

Under this Act, unless dispensation is granted, a residential landlord who fails to comply with the Requirements cannot recover more than £250 from each tenant. In this case, although the cost of the works was £280,000, the landlord could not have recovered more than £1,250 (five tenants paying £250).

The landlord’s failure was that it only provided the tenants with a priced specification for one of the two tenders it obtained. The Supreme Court dispensed with the Requirements and reduced the tenants’ liability by just £50,000. Its reasoning was that the landlord’s failure to comply caused no significant prejudice to the tenants (they just lost the chance to make a case for proceeding with the other tender).

This surprising decision seems to “drive a coach and horses” through the statutory service charge protection available to residential tenants.

Related opinions

Internal reports and privilege

In University of Dundee v Chakraborty, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) considered whether a first draft of a grievance report could retrospectively be deemed to be privileged.

View blog

IR35 rules to be scrapped from April 2023

The Chancellor’s recent mini-budget provided a significant announcement for business as it was confirmed that the off-payroll working rules (known as “IR35”) put in place for public and private sector businesses from 2017 and 2021 will be scrapped from April 2023.

View blog

Revoking and reforming EU law

The Government has published the Retained EU Revocation and Reform Bill which, if passed, provides for the revocation of all “EU-derived subordinate legislation” (i.e. UK statutory instruments which were introduced to implement EU law) and retained direct EU legislation on 31 December 2023, unless legislation is specifically introduced to save them.

View blog

Gender equality

Randstad has published a report on gender equality in the workplace based upon survey responses from 6,000 workers within the construction, education, healthcare and technology sectors. Whilst legislation relating to sex discrimination has been around for over 45 years, nearly three quarters of female workers surveyed reported that they had either experienced or witnessed inappropriate behaviour or comments from male colleagues.

View blog

View all blogs