Cases - Admiralty Park Management Company Limited v Mr Olufemi Ojo
Record details
- Name
- Admiralty Park Management Company Limited v Mr Olufemi Ojo
- Date
- [2016]
- Citation
- UKUT 0421 (LC)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Service charges – Contractual method of calculation – Whether service charge payable – estoppel by convention
- Summary
-
The appellant management company appealed against the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (F-tT) that the respondent tenant was not liable to pay service charges in respect of the years 2010 to 2014 for services provided by the appellant, because the service charges had not been calculated in accordance with the method prescribed by the lease. The point was first raised by the F-tT at the start of the hearing and the appellant was not given the opportunity to respond to the new point raised.
The F-tT’s refusal to allow the appellant to respond to the new point raised was procedurally unfair. It had determined Mr Ojo’s liability at nil on the basis of a point that was not raised by Mr Ojo himself, but by the F-tT and in circumstances where a right of reply was not afforded. The decision had to be set aside.
Further, it was unfair for Mr Ojo to now be allowed to dispute the manner in which the service charges had been calculated. Not only had Mr Ojo acquiesced to the appellant’s method of calculating the maintenance charge, which deviated from the contractually prescribed method, he had also failed to challenge the basis of that calculation when he had the opportunity to do so during formal proceedings back in 2011.