Cases - Gateway Holdings (NWB) Ltd v (1) Lynda McKenzie (2) Simon Greenfield
Record details
- Name
- Gateway Holdings (NWB) Ltd v (1) Lynda McKenzie (2) Simon Greenfield
- Date
- [2018]
- Citation
- UKUT 371 (LC)
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Service charges – Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, s.27A – Reasonableness – Predecessor-in-title – Locus standi
- Summary
-
The respondent was a long lessee of a flat she inherited in March 2016 following the death of her father. The respondent applied to the First-Tier Tribunal (FTT) for a determination whether the service charges were payable between the years 2011 to 2016. The FTT considered the service charges for all the disputed years and reduced the amount of service charge payable from 2011 to 2016.
The appellant landlord appealed. The main issue on appeal was whether a residential leaseholder could apply to the FTT under s.27 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (the Act) for a determination in respect of service charges paid by a predecessor-in-title before they acquired the lease.
Relying on the decision of the Court of Appeal in Oakfern Properties Ltd v Ruddy [2006] EWCA Civ 1389, the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) (UT) found that a long lessee could apply to the FTT under s.27A of the Act for a determination of service charges paid by a predecessor-in-title. There was no justification for implying any restriction into the general words of s.27A(1) of the Act.
In the present case, the outcome of the FTT’s determination in relation to the years before the respondent acquired her father’s lease was of no practical benefit to her. The service charge demands that were challenged had been paid by her father and neither she nor her father’s estate had any continuing liability for them. Under the terms of the lease, the landlord was to give credit for any amount overpaid for the service charges. Presumably any repayment had to be made to the tenant who paid the original amount. The amount the FTT had found was overpaid during the years 2011 to 2015 had been paid by the respondent’s father and not her. She was not entitled to receive the overpayment. The executors of her father’s estate could make a claim to recover the overpayment, but the respondent was not an executor.
As a matter of case management, rather than jurisdiction, the FTT had been wrong to permit the respondent to seek a determination under s.27A of the Act of service charges payable when she was not the leaseholder.