The work of the LVT in the south

publication date: Oct 23, 2008

There really is no very great difference in the nature of the enfranchisement work done by the LVT in the suburban areas of Greater London and the enfranchisement work that it does in the rest of south-eastern England.

A much greater difference lies between that done in central London (what the Court of Appeal in Earl Cadogan v Sportelli [2007] EWCA Civ 1042 called the Prime Central London area or PCL) and the work that the tribunal does in the rest of the country, including London suburbs.

As Siobhan McGrath, Senior President, mentioned in her previous article, the greatest concentration of enfranchisement applications is in London. That is not surprising, for the legislation primarily addresses the sort of tenures that are to be found there, but similar tenures exist along the south coast, especially in the Bournemouth and Brighton areas, and the 300 or so applications that the Southern Panel expects to receive this year will primarily arise in those two localities.

There is no typical case, for every one has its own special features, but a substantial proportion of the Southern cases arise from applications by lessees to extend their leases. Such applications are often precursors to sale, when it has been discovered that a prospective purchaser may have problems raising a mortgage against the limited term of the lease that remains. In 2002 the right to an extended lease first became available to non-resident landlords who otherwise satisfied the requirements of the Act, and an increase in applications resulted.

Inherent tension

It may help to draw attention to a couple of areas of practice that parties or their advisors may encounter in dealing with enfranchisement work through the LVT.

First, an inherent tension exists between the function of the LVT and the requirements of the legislation. Anyone who wishes to enfranchise, whether collectively or by extending an individual lease, must make application to the LVT within a specific period after giving notice in order to protect his or her rights. The LVT is a public service organisation, and so treats that application as a matter that it must deal with promptly. It has published service targets, and in any event is committed to seek prompt resolution of applications made to it by the spirit of the procedural reforms that Lord Woolf brought into the Courts some years ago.

Advisors sometimes wish to defer the operation of the LVT proceedings for longer than it is prepared to contemplate. The LVT considers that it is appropriate to allow a reasonable time for negotiation to take place, but that if a settlement cannot be reached fairly promptly then prompt resolution is to be preferred to drawn out and uncertain negotiation.

Secondly, a potential source of difference between properties within the PCL and those elsewhere lies in the matter of relativity. There are a number of graphs of relativity that are based very largely on figures derived from within the PCL. It does not necessarily follow that those figures will be replicated in other localities, so that LVTs dealing with properties outside of the PCL will hope to see other evidence that may cast light on the appropriate relativity figures in the locality with which they happen to be dealing. Even LVT members, however, realise that for many reasons this is not an easy task, and hope that the graph or graphs that the RICS are understood to have in hand dealing with relativities in other markets will help everyone concerned when they become available.