[2024] UKUT 205 (LC)

The first item in the list of costs sought to be recovered was not incurred in connection with a dispute with a leaseholder. Instead it was about the membership of the appellant and about the convening of meetings (I take that description from the copy of the solicitors’ invoice in the bundle).

Such costs were not contemplated by the original parties to the lease, because in 1995 the right to manage legislation had not yet been enacted. It was not part of “the facts and circumstances known or assumed by the parties at the time the document was executed”, nor part of the “overall purpose of the clause or the lease” (see Arnold v Britton paragraph 10 above). Moreover, such costs benefit the RTM company, whose membership is a proportion – probably a majority, but in the present case not all – of the leaseholders, and there is no reason why the cost of the running of a company of which not all are members should be an expense charged to all.

Accordingly the appellant’s claim to be able to charge the first item in the list at paragraph 5 above clearly fails.