[2025] UKUT 157 (LC)

This is an appeal against a remediation order made by the First-tier Tribunal under the Building Safety Act 2022. The appellant is content that an order was made but challenges the breadth of the order, arguing that most of the defects specified in it were not properly before the FTT and that the decision was at variance with the evidence before the FTT.

The appellant, Monier Road Limited (“MRL”) was represented by Mr Jonathan Selby KC. The respondents, whose names are listed at the end of this decision and to whom we refer as “the leaseholders”, filed a Respondents’ Notice within the time directed by the Tribunal when permission to appeal was granted, but did not file a Statement of Case in the appeal until a week before the hearing. Mr Blomfield, who is one of the leaseholders and represented the rest, made an application in writing for that Statement of Case to be admitted despite the very late service. The Tribunal stated that it would hear the application at the hearing of the appeal; at the beginning of the hearing Mr Blomfield communicated with MRL’s solicitor by text to say that he would not be attending. Accordingly his application for permission to file a Statement of Case on behalf of the respondents was not heard and the Statement of Case has not been admitted. Nevertheless we make reference to it in the course of the decision so as to indicate why its admission would have made no difference to the outcome of this appeal. We are grateful to Mr Blomfield for his presentation of the appellant’s case and for addressing points raised by the leaseholders.

Not for the first time this year the Tribunal has to discuss the extent to which the FTT can raise points which are not part of either party’s case, and how it should proceed if it chooses to do so. The relevant law has recently been discussed in detail in the decision of the President of the Lands Chamber (Mr Justice Edwin Johnson) in Sovereign Network Homes v Hakobyan and others [2025] UKUT 115 (LC), and in terms of legal principle there is nothing we could add to that decision. But this is the first time the issue has arisen in the context of the Building Safety Act 2022 and the appeal provides a useful opportunity for the Tribunal to re-iterate the relevant legal principles in that context.