[2024] UKUT 80 (LC)

This is an appeal from a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (“the FTT”) about liability to pay leasehold service charges, in the jurisdiction conferred by section 27A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The appellant, Thirty One Crescent Grove Limited, is the freeholder of 31 Crescent Grove, a converted Georgian house containing six residential flats. Its members are the leaseholders of the flats, who each hold a 999-year lease of their flat or flats and hold one share in the company for each flat they own. There are five individual owners, one of whom owns two flats and so has two shares. The respondent, Mr Sven Atherden, owns one flat on the second floor of the building and so holds one share in the freeholder company.

In May 2023 the FTT decided that the appellant could recover only £250 by way of service charge in respect of work done to redecorate the stairwell; and it decided that £600 spent by the respondent himself on work to the roof should be shared by all the leaseholders as part of the service charge.

From those two decision the landlord appeals, with permission from this Tribunal. Neither party has been legally represented; Mr David Bingham has prepared the appellant’s written representations.