Case No. UKUT-285-(LC)-UTLC-Case-Numbers:-LC-2022-125

33.As we have seen, the appellant brought county court proceedings against the respondent in 2017, and later demanded (see paragraph 6 above) an administration charge of £3,600 in respect of its managing agents’ work in respect of those proceedings. That administration charge was claimed, as being in arrears, in the present county court proceedings. The FTT said this about it:“The tribunal finds these sums are not payable. If the applicant had wished to recover the costs of those proceedings, they should have sought the same in Claim no D9QZ449J1.”34.It appears that the judge and member in the FTT thought they were being asked to make a costs order, either in respect of county court costs in the previous proceedings (as to which the FTT had no jurisdiction) or in respect of the costs incurred in the FTT in the previous proceedings. The FTT’s jurisdiction in relation to service charges is essentially a no-costs jurisdiction, and no suggestion was made that there were grounds to make an order under rule 13(1)(b) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 where a person has behaved unreasonably in bringing or defending the proceedings. So it is difficult to see how the FTT could have supposed that it was being asked to make an order in respect of those FTT costs.35.But the FTT was not being asked to exercise either of those jurisdictions. It was asked to assess the reasonableness and payability of this administration charge under Schedule 11 to the 2002 Act, and on the basis that the charges were payable under the section 146 clause as explained under ground 2 above.36.Accordingly the FTT made an error of law and its decision is set aside. 37.However, there is no evidence that the 2017 county court proceedings were brought for the purpose of initiating forfeiture proceedings by preparing and serving a section 146 notice. The appellant’s statement of case in the FTT in the present proceedings says that this was the appellant’s purpose in bring both the present proceedings and the 2017 proceedings, but so far as the 2017 proceedings are concerned that is a self-serving statement made after the event and in the absence of any contemporaneous indication that that was the landlord’s purpose in 2017 those charges are not payable. Mr Granby in written submissions invited by me after the hearing (because this point was not explored properly at the hearing) said that he was “specifically instructed that had Mr Gurvitz been asked by the FTT whether the Appellant initiated the previous set of proceedings pursuant to an intention to service a s.146 notice and (if the breach was unremedied) proceed to forfeit the lease then Mr Gurvitz would have confirmed that that had been the intention”. But he was not asked, and that evidence was not given. Accordingly the Tribunal substitutes its own decision that the charge of £3,600 is not payable by the respondent.