[2025] UKUT 359 (LC)

The Sleaford and Gayton Residents’ Association made an application to the FTT for a certificate under section 29(1)(b)(i). The copy of the application form provided to the Tribunal is undated, but it must have been in the autumn of 2024. The application was for the grant of a certificate for an association representing both Sleaford House and Gayton House, and it stated that each had 99 flats; the landlord was said to be the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. In the box on the application form which asked for the number of flats for which variable service charges were payable the applicant’s representative wrote “unsure”; the number of flats whose tenants were members of the association was said to be 22.

At some point in the proceedings the landlord was identified as Poplar HARCA (which stands for Poplar Housing and Regeneration Community), which is the respondent to this appeal.

On 29 November 2024 the application was refused; in a letter to the appellant, written on the instructions of a judge, the FTT acknowledged the application and “various correspondence”, and stated that because fewer than 50% of qualifying tenants were members of the appellant it was unable to grant a certificate in light of the prohibition in regulation 4(1) of the 2018 regulations (set out above).

The FTT refused permission to appeal; its decision stated that the applicant was the “Sleaford and Chilton House Residents’ Association.” The decision stated that a certificate could not be granted because fewer than 50% of the qualifying tenants were members of the association, “there being approximately 20% participation”.

An application for permission to appeal to the Tribunal was made by the appellant, “Sleaford House Tenants’ Association.” In its grounds of appeal it stated that it sought to appeal only in relation to Sleaford House, because the landlord required that there be separate associations for the two blocks, and it said that there were 39 “leaseholders in the building”. It provided a list of 28 long-leaseholder members with flats in Sleaford House. Permission to appeal was granted on the basis that if there were indeed 39 qualifying leaseholders and either 22 or 28 of them were members then either the FTT had not correctly applied the statutory requirements or it had not properly explained its decision.

Directions were given for the appellant to state clearly whether it now sought recognition as an RTA in relation to Sleaford House alone or in relation also to Gayton House, for the respondent to file and serve a statement of case, and for the appellant to reply.