[2025] UKUT 120 (LC)

I have set out at [24] and [25] above those parts of the FTT’s decision in which it explained the dispute over charges for external repairs and maintenance and recorded that the parties had reached agreement. It is significant that the FTT did not purport to determine the dispute. There is therefore no decision against which the appellant can appeal. The appellant’s dissatisfaction is with the impression given by the FTT that the parties’ agreement was in accordance with the submissions of the respondent’s counsel which it recited in the decision.

It is clear that the respondent’s counsel initially failed to appreciate that the issues raised by the respondent in the schedule was only concerned with the cost of external repairs and maintenance. The figures recorded by the FTT were taken directly from counsel’s written argument and compared the invoices disclosed by the appellant with the aggregate of the sums shown in the annual accounts for internal repairs and maintenance and external repairs and maintenance. But the invoices disclosed by the appellant related only to external repairs and maintenance, as those were the only sums put in issue by the respondent in her schedule, and the FTT had properly limited disclosure to those matters which were in dispute. The comparison proposed by the respondent’s counsel was therefore a false one.

Fortunately, the respondent’s counsel appreciated his mistake and, as the FTT recorded at [36] of the decision, he explained to the FTT that only external repairs and maintenance had been challenged in the schedule. It was on that basis that the parties were then able to agree the sums payable, which were not those recorded by the FTT. Any different impression given by the FTT was therefore incorrect.

I do not know what the parties agreed and I was told that, as far as the appellant was aware, the agreement had not been recorded in writing (possibly because it was unnecessary to do so if the respondent simply admitted the figures she had previously disputed). In any event, it is clear that something was agreed and that, except for 2022, it was not recorded by the FTT. That is regrettable, though not the fault of the FTT if it was not told the figures. The FTT was technically correct that once the parties had reached agreement it no longer had jurisdiction to make a determination under section 27A, but that would not have prevented it from recording what had been agreed for 2019, 2020 and 2021 in its decision. Had it done so, there would have been no room for later dispute. I do not know if there has been any further dispute over what was agreed, but if there has, it will be necessary for it to be determined in the continuing County Court proceedings.