Upcoming Events :
Housing Seminar: Partnerships with the Public Sector – Avoiding the pitfalls
Thu 31 May 2012
Minerva House, 5 Montague Close, London, SE1 9BB
Landlord fails in bid to get dispensation from consultation requirements
Wed 18 Jan 2012
A landlord who sought dispensation from tenant consultation requirements has lost his appeal.
It had already been ruled by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal that the appellant landlord Stenau Properties Ltd could not circumvent the Landlord and Tenant Act.
The case had been brought by leaseholders who had been ordered to pay the landlord a service charge.
While the actual sum was not deemed to be an unreasonable amount, Stenau had not gone through the proper consultation process before asking for the financial contributions.
Mark Vinall, a partner at Winckworth Sherwood, commented: "This case demonstrates that landlords need to tread carefully when undertaking major works if they wish to limit the risk of being left out of pocket for the lion's share of the cost of the works, as the flat owner's contribution may be limited to £250 per flat where there is non compliance with the statutory consultation process.
"In this case the landlord was deprived of the opportunity to argue that the flat owners were not prejudiced and so recover the costs of the works due to its non compliance being substantial. In that situation it will be assumed that prejudice has been suffered even if the landlord could show that full compliance would have produced the same outcome. In other words, landlords will have little hope of obtaining dispensation for non compliance unless it is minor."
