[2025] UKUT 64 (LC)

Section 35 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 permits any party to a long lease of a flat to make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) for an order varying the lease. This appeal arises out of such an order made by the FTT on 1 July 2024, varying the lease of a flat belonging to the respondents, Mr and Mrs Wilson. The variation clarified, as between the respondents and the appellant, their landlord, which of them is to be responsible for the repair and maintenance of the roof of a single storey extension which was added to the respondents’ flat by one of their predecessors more than fifty years ago.

The FTT varied the respondents’ lease to record that the flat roof of the extension is part of the property reserved to the landlord out of the lease and is part of the building which the landlord is required to keep in repair. By the time of the hearing before the FTT the parties were in agreement that the appellant should keep the roof in repair, but its condition had been a matter of dispute between them for some time and the FTT considered that the lack of clarity meant that the lease failed to make satisfactory provision for repair or maintenance and that a variation was justified.

Although the parties remained in agreement that the roof should be kept in repair by the appellant, it was granted permission to appeal by the FTT and has pursued the appeal on the grounds that the FTT was wrong to consider that the lease failed to make satisfactory provision for repair; if that ground is made out, the FTT would have had no power to order the variation.

At the hearing of the appeal the appellant was represented by Mr Michael Mullin and the respondents by Mr Richard Clarke. I am grateful to them both for their assistance.