© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
© 2025 News On The Block. All rights reserved.
News on the Block is a trading name of Premier Property Media Ltd.
In the second of a series of plain-English legal articles, Shaun Jardine of Brethertons Solicitors highlights an area of law of most interest to landlords – getting paid for major works. (Last issue’s article dealt with the same subject from the tenants perspective.)
The laws under the spotlight are Commonhold & Leasehold Reform Act 2002 (CLRA); the Service Charge (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003 and Section 20 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.The problem is that some Landlords and property mangers have no idea what the contents of the lease are and do not understand the Section 20 consultation process. Many of them work on the basis that works need doing and they can be recovered via the service charge and the tenants should pay regardless.
In short, landlords and property managers must read and understand the lease. Are the works they are proposing to carry out and charge to the tenants recoverable from them at all? As solicitors we have received instructions from landlords who have purchased freeholds without reading leases only to discover that major works can’t be charged back to tenants at all. Comply with the consultation process; it is not onerous (see the previous issue of News on the Block). However it does require some advance planning and meticulous record keeping which can be where many property managers and landlords foul up. If the landlord fails to consult properly then the “relevant contribution” of the tenant can be limited to £250 for qualifying works.
The Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) can dispense with any or all of the consultation requirements if it is reasonable to do so. This can be done in advance or after a contract has been entered into. For example, if there is an urgent need to erect a scaffold to stop parts of a building falling down the LVT can dispense with consultation. However if the landlord has known about a problem for months or years the LVT will be less likely to dispense with consultation if a landlord has known of the problem.
So landlords beware. If you decide to put a new roof on a block of flats with 10 units in the building at a cost of £25,000, if Section 20 is not complied with you will only get back 1/10th of your outlay.
As solicitors we are regularly asked to carry out lease reviews in which we highlight the salient parts of leases including relevant dates, powers and charging provisions so future foul ups can be avoided. If a property is managed without the lease being fully understood it is like playing poker with a bad hand… you can try and bluff it out for a while but you may lose.