[2025] UKUT 371 (LC)

The proceedings began in the County Court in July 2023 with a claim by the Council for £6,115.02 said to be payable as service charges, ground rent and administration charges. The claim was largely unparticularised and in their defence Mr and Mrs Williams explained that they were happy to pay what was due to the Council but that, despite request, they had not been provided with a breakdown. A landlord, including a local authority landlord, is of course under a statutory duty imposed by section 21, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, to supply a written summary of relevant costs on written request submitted by a leaseholder. It is a summary offence for a person to fail, without reasonable excuse, to comply with that duty, although since 2014 registered social landlords have been exempted from the penalties, but not from the duty (section 25, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985).

After the claim was transferred to the FTT, schedules were produced by the Council showing that the sum in issue comprised £27 in ground rent, £201.09 in pre-action legal costs claimed as an administration charge, and service charges and insurance totalling £1,896.27 for the year to 31 March 2021, £2,028.23 for 2022, and £2,467.74 for 2023. In aggregate, these figures exceed the amount claimed in the County Court by £277.22.

Using the schedules with which they had belatedly been provided, Mr and Mrs Williams were able to consider the charges and highlight the items which they disputed. These fell into two categories: charges relating to works done in individual flats occupied by the Council’s own tenants; and charges related to works done on parts of the Gascoyne Estate lying outside the boundaries of the area identified as the Estate on the plan attached to their lease.

It was Mr Williams case before the FTT (as explained in writing on 27 August 2024) that he had been informed by the Council that, as leaseholders, he and his wife were responsible for the heating installations in their own flat, that they had incurred costs in carrying out repairs and replacements to those installations, and that they should therefore not be liable for the cost of repairs to installations in the Council’s own flats. They also relied on the plan attached to their lease which they interpreted as delineating the Estate to include only The Points and their immediate curtilage and as not extending to other parts of the extensive Gascoyne Estate.