[2024] UKUT 335 (LC)

Numbers 7 to 26 Cresta Court (“the property”) is a self-contained part of a building. By a claim notice dated 21 January 2022 the respondent gave notice to the appellant, the freeholder of the building, that it intended to acquire the right to manage the property. The appellant gave a counter-notice on 24 February 2022 contesting the respondent’s entitlement, and on 16 March 2022 the respondent made an application to the FTT. In the FTT the appellant challenged the claim notice on the basis that no notice of invitation to participate had been given to the leaseholder of flat 17, Ms Beverley O’Connor, that she was a qualifying tenant and entitled to receive that notice, and that the failure to serve meant that the claim notice was invalid.

Ms O’Connor’s lease was granted in April 2020 but her leasehold title was not registered until after the service of the claim notice (the registration being backdated to 15 July 2021). At the date of the claim notice there was a note on the freehold title of a pending application, but such notes do not say what is the application to which they refer, and the respondent did not make any enquiries about it. We can infer that Ms O’Connor’s application for registration was made on 15 July 2021, because of the later backdating, and that it was to her application that the note of a pending application referred.

The reason for the delay in the registration of the lease of flat 17 is not known, nor the date on which registration took place – but certainly it had not taken place by the crucial date, 14 days before the claim notice was served, and no notice of invitation to participate was given to Ms O’Connor.

It may be helpful to set out the relevant dates out as follows:

Accordingly at the date of the claim notice, and crucially 14 days beforehand, Ms O’Connor held an equitable lease of flat 17 and there was no legal lease in existence.