The Home Office has (finally) announced the ‘pilot’ areas for the landlord immigration check requirement under Immigration Act 2014. The areas are Birmingham, Walsall, Sandwell, Dudley and Wolverhampton. The requirement will come in to force in those areas on 1 December 2014, with other areas to follow at unspecified dates in 2015. The equipment will […]
Category Archives: Leasehold and shared ownership
A short note on leasehold costs
The UT(LC) has published an addendum to Daejan Properties Ltd v Griffin [2014] UKUT 206 (LC) (our note here). The substantive case was about historic neglect. In outline, the leaseholders had won in the FTT and the UT overturned the decision, The UT invited written submissions on s.20C, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 and, in […]
Costs and forfeiture
Barrett v Robinson [2014] UKUT 322 (LC) is very, very important decision on costs from the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber). It came out a few weeks ago and I’ve been promising to do it since then. Sorry. You’ll be aware that most, if not all leases, have a “forfeiture costs” clause in them – something […]
Indecent homes and major works charges
The DCLG has released the “Social landlords reduction of service charges: mandatory and discretionary directions 2014“, in force as of today, 12 August 2014. The upshot of the mandatory directions is that a social landlord which undertakes “repair, maintenance or improvement” wholly or partly funded by (a) the Decent Homes Backlog Funding provided through the […]
Register your s.13 notices
The title of this post lacks much creative input, but sometimes it’s better to be clear than amusing. The recent decision in Regent Wealth Ltd and others v Wiggins [2014] EWCA Civ 1078 is a clear reminder to practitioners to register notices under s.13, Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993. An introduction to […]
Historic Neglect
Daejan Properties Ltd v Griffin & Anor [2014] UKUT 206 (LC) is not, perhaps, the most riveting of Upper Tribunal appeals on service charges, but it does have some useful statements and reminders along the way. This concerned a 3 storey Victorian property in Barnet, with shops on the ground floor and 18 flats […]
In the garden of Eden
Lawtel had an interesting note on a permission to appeal case earlier this week – Mount Eden Land Ltd v Bolsover Investments Ltd (Ch.D, 20.6.14). Mount Eden Land Ltd (also known as the Langham Estate) had the freehold of an office block. Bolsover Investments Ltd had the remainder of a 999 year lease (running from […]
Come friendly bombs…
Terrorism insurance is an increasingly contentious issue in service charge cases; in short, many leaseholders think it is unnecessary and simply serves to increase the their service charges (and, potentially, acts as an additional source of commission for landlords, itself a very contentious issue). Well, in Qdime Ltd v Various Leaseholders at Bath Building (Swindon) […]
Former landlords and s.20B LTA 1985
In Ground Rents (Regisport) Ltd v Dowlen [2014] UKUT 144 (LC), the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) had to – once again – grapple with s.20B, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. The facts are quite straightforward. Imagine, if you will, that there is a modern development of three blocks of flats. It was developed by Countryside […]
Don’t ask the surveyor
Windermere Marina Village v Wild [2014] UKUT 163 (LC) is an important decision about the vexed question of apportionment that arises in many residential service charge disputes. Many residential leases for flats divide up the total service charge bill between flat owners in some fixed proportion. For example in a block of four flats, each flat might bear […]
