[2023] UKUT 137 (LC)

This appeal is about the meaning of a badly drafted tribunal order appointing a manager of the Canary Riverside estate under Part II, Landlord and Tenant Act 1987.

Canary Riverside is a large mixed estate in East London containing both residential and commercial premises. It already had a history of litigation when Mr Alan Coates was appointed as manager by the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (the FTT) on 1 October 2016 and many additional chapters of that history have been written since then. The current manager, Mr Unsdorfer, was appointed in place of Mr Coates in September 2019.

The present dispute is about the extent to which the manager can recover his costs of proceedings from the tenants of the commercial premises. The manager wants the commercial tenants to contribute towards the costs of any litigation in which he becomes involved (to the extent that they are not recovered from other parties to the proceedings). The first, second and third respondents, who are landlords of the commercial premises, think their commercial tenants should only contribute to the costs of litigation about the services provided to them by the manager. The other respondents are tenants of residential parts of the estate and support the manager’s position. The commercial tenants are not parties to the proceedings but a number of them informed the FTT, unsurprisingly, that they did not want to contribute to any of the manager’s litigation costs.

In two decisions issued on 13 May and 27 July 2022 the FTT found largely in favour of the landlords (as I will refer to the first to third respondents), but it granted the manager permission to appeal.

At the hearing of the appeal the manager was represented by Mr Daniel Dovar, and the landlords by Mr Justin Bates. I am grateful to them both for their submissions. The fourth respondent filed a statement of case supporting the manager’s appeal but limited itself to the general proposition that the order appointing the manager should be interpreted purposively in such a way as to maximise the prospects of his appointment being successful.