[2023] UKUT 231 (LC)

The FTT recorded that the appellant challenged cleaning costs within the service charges, on the basis that the cleaners appeared to be charging for 7.5 hours’ work but had done considerably less than that. The FTT considered the respondent’s argument that more time was needed to do the cleaning than the appellant contended, and noted that no other lessees had complained about the cost. The FTT found that the charges were reasonable and would be payable if correct demands were issued. The FTT did not say how much had been demanded nor when it had been demanded, but I infer it was looking at charges made after September 2016 since the FTT did not say that the appellant had admitted liability for these charges.

On appeal the appellant explained that he had been charged £229.39 for the 2015-16 service charge year, £229.29 for 2016/17 and £215.20 for 2017/18.

No service charge demands were produced and it is not possible to identify these charges in the service charges account; if I have understood correctly, invoices for cleaning have been produced by the respondent and Mr Lacy has worked out from them what he has been charged. He said that the FTT had not engaged with his case nor with the respondent’s case. He had argued that it should only take an hour per month to clean the common parts, and that at the company’s rates that would be £324 including VAT for the whole of the common parts (to be shared amongst the leaseholders, his share being 13.33%). The respondent had argued that the work would take four hours, which at the cleaners’ rates would be £1,008 for the property for the year. In fact the cleaners had charged £1,724.74 in 2015/16, £1,723.99 in 2016/17, and £1,618.08 in 2017/18. Therefore on the respondent’s own case the charge made by the cleaners, and passed on to the leaseholders, had not been reasonable.

Clearly the FTT did not engage with that argument.

Mr McHugh was without instructions on this point and was unable to assist the Tribunal.

Accordingly I have to find that the appeal succeeds and I substitute the Tribunal’s own decision. I think it very unlikely that any meaningful cleaning of the common parts of a building of this size could be done in one hour a month and so I prefer the respondent’s argument. I find that a reasonable charge to have been demanded of Mr Lacy in respect of cleaning for the three years in question was 13.33% of £1,008.