In Akorita v 36 Gensing Road Ltd,  the Lands Tribunal considered whether or not the Appellant had been properly served with a notice under s.20 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

Pursuant to the Right to Buy (“RTB”), the respondent purchased a leasehold interest in the flat that he had been renting from the appellant local authority in April 2005. In general terms, where someone is purchasing a leasehold interest under the RTB provisions, the local authority will serve a notice under s.125 Housing Act 1985, setting out the anticipated level of service charge expenditure for the first five years of the lease. Save for increases for inflation, the s.125 notice operates to cap the level of service charge recovery during those first five years.

The appellant was the leasehold owner of a flat in a block owned by the respondent local authority. Unusually, it was not a Right to Buy lease. In October 2004, the respondent commenced a major works programme to the block of flats. As part of the major works programme, the timber windows of a number of flats were replaced with uPVC double glazed units. The appellant did not want her windows replaced and agreed with the respondent that they could be left. However, the respondent did seek to recover its costs of replacing all the other windows via the service charge.

Sections 18 - 30 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 contain a detailed regulatory framework for service charges in residential property. In broad terms, leaseholders can dispute their service charges if they are said to be unreasonable in some way.

Swanlane Estates Ltd v Woods and others

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