[2025] UKUT 111 (LC)

The application was received by the FTT on 18 July and referred to a Member of the tribunal for consideration on 25 July, by which time the term of the manager’s appointment had expired. The FTT gave the parties the opportunity to make representations on whether it had jurisdiction to make the proposed order or whether the application should be struck out. When these were received, the application was returned to the Member for consideration. By an order made on 30 July 2024 the application was struck out, the Member giving the following reasons:

“This Order which ceased on Saturday 20 July 2024, was for a term certain and the application was only referred to a procedural judge for consideration by a Tribunal case officer after the expiration date of that Order. The Tribunal does not possess the jurisdiction or power to breathe new life into and determine a variation to an expired Order. The parties and the Tribunal must adhere to the required statutory procedures, however unsatisfactory that maybe for the Applicants, which are set down to protect all parties in what is after all the exercise of a draconian power.”

The Member supplemented these reasons when he granted permission to appeal and referred in particular to a decision of this Tribunal, Eaglesham Properties Ltd v Jeffrey [2012] UKUT 157 (LC) to which he had drawn the parties’ attention when inviting their submissions on whether the application should be struck out. In Eaglesham, a manager had allowed his interim appointment to expire before making an application to the appropriate tribunal for an extension, which was granted by the first instance tribunal. On appeal, this Tribunal (Judge Walden-Smith) decided that no such order should have been made, saying:

“Once the interim order has lapsed and the functions of the management of the block reverted to the freehold owner, through their appointed manager, there is no jurisdiction to extend the original order.”

The Member acknowledged that the facts of this case are different, in that (as he put it) the application had been made before the expiry of the order, whereas in Eaglesham the appointment had already expired before the application was made. Nevertheless, he considered that the original order could not “automatically be deemed to be extended by receipt of an application for variation or extension close to the expiration of the existing management order.” There would be “significant practical difficulties” if that approach was adopted.

The Member recognised the implications of his decision for the applicants and more widely and granted permission to appeal.

After the application had been struck out the respondent informed the appellants’ solicitor on 2 August 2024 that it had resumed responsibility for the management and maintenance of the building, until such time as the Tribunal had made a decision on the appeal. I do not know what, in practice, that resumption of responsibility has entailed, if anything, and in their submissions in support of the appeal the appellants have stated that the leaseholders have refused to comply with the respondent’s requests for the payment of service charges.