[2024] UKUT 41 (LC)

Sections 13 and 14 of the Housing Act 1988 are concerned with increases in rent payable under assured periodic tenancies. Where the landlord under such a tenancy wishes to obtain an increase in rent it must serve on the tenant a notice in a prescribed form specifying the proposed new rent to take effect at the beginning of a specified period of the tenancy (section 13(1)-(2)). The proposed rent will take effect unless the parties agree an alternative figure or the tenant exercises the right conferred by section 13(4) to refer the notice to the appropriate tribunal (in England, the FTT).

The statutory procedure is contained in section 13(4) which states that the new rent specified in a landlord’s notice:

“shall take effect unless, before the end of the new period specified in the notice-

(a)

the tenant by an application in the prescribed form refers the notice to the appropriate tribunal; or

(b)

the landlord and the tenant agree on a variation of the rent which is different from that proposed in the notice or agree that the rent should not be varied.”

It is important to appreciate that a reference to the FTT of a landlord’s notice of increase given under section 13, Housing Act 1988 is not an appeal by the tenant. All that has happened up to that point is that the parties have failed to agree on what the new rent should be. Nothing which binds either party has yet been decided and there is no decision to appeal against. That is important because it means that the tenant is under no obligation to present a case which demonstrates that the proposed increase is unjustified (as is usually required of a party who appeals against a decision which would otherwise be binding). All that the tenant is required to do is to refer the notice to the FTT.

When the FTT receives a referral of a notice under section 13, it is instructed by section 14(1) to determine the rent at which, on certain assumptions, it considers that the dwelling concerned might reasonably be expected to be let in the open market by a willing landlord under an assured tenancy which is on the same terms and for the same periods as the tenancy to which the notice relates, and which would begin at the beginning of the new period specified in the notice. These instructions are consistent with the point I have made above about the procedure not being a form of appeal. No special status is afforded by section 14 to the rent proposed by the landlord, and the tenant is under no obligation to persuade the FTT that a different figure is appropriate. In that respect the parties stand before the FTT on a level playing field.