Case No. UKUT-62-(LC)

14.Wick Hall is a block of 168 flats in Hove. In September 2021 the respondent RTM company was incorporated with the object of acquiring the right to manage the block. On 8 September notices of invitation to participate were prepared by the company’s adviser, RTMF Services Ltd (RTMF), and on 9 September these were served by post on all those qualifying leaseholders of whom RTMF was aware who were not already members of the company.15.The registered proprietors of the lease of flat 121 were joint tenants. By mistake, as Mr Joiner openly acknowledged before the FTT, the notice of invitation to participate served by RTMF at flat 121 was addressed to only one of the two joint tenants.16.RTMF had searched the land register on 2 September 2021 to ascertain the identity of all leaseholders who might be qualifying tenants. Its search focussed on the head-leasehold title vested in the appellant’s predecessor, Dorrington Housing Ltd (Dorrington), out of which long leases of individual flats had been granted. From that search RTMF concluded that no long leases had been granted in respect of flats 30 and 154 and that there were therefore no qualifying tenants of those flats. As a result, no notices of invitation to participate were served at flats 30 and 154 on 9 September or at any time before the appellant served its claim notice on Dorrington on 28 September. 17.Unfortunately, a week after RTMF’s search of the register a new long lease of flat 30 was registered on 9 September, the same day as the notices inviting participation were served by RTMF on those qualifying tenants known to it. RTMF did not become aware of that lease until much later and no notices inviting participation were served on the new leaseholders of flat 30 in the 14 days before the claim was made on 28 September (notices were eventually served in March 2022).18.For reasons which are not clear, RTMF addressed the notice inviting participation which it served at flat 154 to previous joint leaseholders who had sold their lease on 17 March 2021. The purchaser was registered as the new proprietor on 23 April 2021 but no notice inviting her to participate was served by RTMF before the claim was made (once again, notice was eventually served in March 2022). 19.The claim notice served by RTMF on 28 September 2021 listed 112 members of the RTM company who were qualifying tenants. The appellant’s case before the FTT was that four additional members had been omitted from the list of qualifying tenants in the claim notice. This case had been refined by the time of the appeal and it is now said that one member of the company who was also a qualifying tenant was omitted from the claim notice, the leaseholder of flat 87. The FTT made no such finding, despite having been provided with copies of the claim notice, the official copy of the land register for flat 87 and the register of members of the company. One of the appellant’s grounds of appeal is that the evidence was only consistent with the conclusion that the qualifying tenant of flat 87 was a member of the company and should therefore have been included in the claim notice.