Articles include:
Restrictive Covenants and Building Schemes Just Like Buses p.7
Land Registration and the Service of Notices: mind the gap p.10
Forks & Spades; Leases & Licences; Possession & Occupation p.14
Recovering Costs in the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) p. 16
Newsletter (PDF)
Falcon Chambers, Winter 2017
Source: www.falcon-chambers.com
‘An interesting question. To what extent, if at all, can leaseholders’ service charges be set at a level to ‘subsidise’ a shortfall as against actual maintenance costs in service charges recoverable from social tenants in flats provided under a section 106 agreement.’
Nearly Legal, 12th February 2017
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘We saw the Upper Tribunal take a new approach to determining whether the costs of improvement works, passed on through the service charge, were reasonably incurred. The UT held that particular consideration should have been given to the views of the leaseholders, whether they could be done more cheaply and the financial circumstances of the leaseholders.’
Nearly Legal, 5th February 2017
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘The vexed issues of costs in service charge disputes rumble on. Willow Court Management Company (1985) Ltd v Alexander [2016] UKUT 0290 (LC) (our note) set out guidance for how and when rule 13 costs awards will be engaged and awarded in the First Tier Tribunal (for unreasonable conduct). But in this case, the landlord had been awarded 20% of their costs under a Rue 13 decision, but then sought to recover the full costs under a contractual entitlement to costs of an enforcement action under the lease, and sort the FTT’s determination of those as a variable administration charge.’
Nearly Legal, 9th January 2017
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘Timothy Taylor Ltd v Mayfair House Corporation & Anor [2016] EWHC 1075 (Ch). It is a commercial property case, but has interesting elements on the way in which building works may be reasonably carried out.’
Nearly Legal, 4th January 2017
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘Leasehold houses aren’t the only problem area – apartment buyers need help too.’
The Guardian, 3rd December 2016
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
‘A landlord may rely on a contractual indemnity clause in a lease to claim as an administration charge the whole of the costs of service charge proceedings in the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) even where it has already been awarded some of its costs under rule 13(1)(b) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013, as Martin Rodger QC, Deputy President, has held in 87 St George’s Square Management Ltd v Whiteside [2016] UKUT 438 (LC).’
Hardwicke Chambers, 14th November 2016
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
‘Tamsin Cox & Julia Petrenko examine a useful authority for freeholders of residential buildings in relation to Airbnb.’
New Law Journal, 18th November 2016
Source: www.newlawjournal.co.uk
‘The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has held that an indemnity given in a lease can be viewed as a promise by the tenant to protect the landlord from the landlord’s liability to a third party. For the tenant to be liable, the tenant’s breach must be the reason for the landlord’s liability to the third party. In this case, the indemnity was not drafted widely enough to render the tenant responsible for the administrative and legal costs incurred by the landlord once the ground rent had been tendered (even though it was tendered late).’
Tanfield Chambers, 10th October 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘In Nemcova v Fairfield Rents Ltd [2016] UKUT 303 (LC), in what has become known as ‘the Airbnb ruling’, the Upper Tribunal gave guidance on the circumstances in which short-term lets might amount to a breach of covenant prohibiting the use of a property for anything other than ‘a private residence’. In this article, Jamal Demachkie (who acted for the successful landlord at first instance and on appeal) provides his analysis of this important decision.’
Hardwicke Chambers, 12th October 2016
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
‘The Upper Tribunal upheld the FTT’s determination that the lessee had breached a covenant in her lease not to use her flat other than as a private residence by granting a series of short-term lettings of the property. The fact that the lessee had granted the lettings meant that her occupation of the flat was so transient and not sufficiently permanent that she would not consider the property her private residence.’
Tanfield Chambers, 10th October 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘Solicitors costs of and incidental to the preparation of a counter notice were recoverable under s. 60 LRHUDA 1993. There ought to be some reduction in costs where a landlord was dealing with multiple claims involving the same building.’
Tanfield Chambers, 1st November 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘The interplay between tenants’ rent obligations and their ability to break the term of their leases has for a number of years been a topic which has been of considerable interest to practitioners advising both either landlords or tenants. Two cases in particular will have been high on the radar in advising clients both before and after the exercise of a break clause.’
Hardwicke Chambers, 12th October 2016
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
‘In a decision which post-dated Sloane Stanley v Mundy, the Upper Tribunal, arrived at relativity by making a deduction from the Gerald Eve graph on the basis that the graph “might overstate relativities” and accepted, on the material before it, that there was a “slight differential between properties in PCL and properties just outside it”.’
Tanfield Chambers, 1st November 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘Airbnb seems like a wonderful idea. You can rent out your flat whenever convenient without having to become a full-time landlord or hotelier. It’s an easy way to earn a little extra cash with the added bonus of a world-wide network of other people’s spare rooms available for that well-deserved weekend break. Airbnb now has 60m users, 640,000 “hosts”, 2m listings and 500,000 stays per night. It’s big!’
Tanfield Chambers, 22nd October 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘What should the Law Commission include in its next programme of law reform? Kathleen Shields discusses some options’
New Law Journal, 15th September 2016
Source: www.newlawjournal.co.uk
‘The last few years have seen short term property letting sites such as Airbnb become the go-to way of booking holiday accommodation in Europe’s most popular cities. Millennial tourists are rejecting stuffy, expensive hotels, preferring instead the flexibility of their own apartment right in the middle of town where, in the words of Airbnb, they can “feel at home anywhere in the world”. In response, those who are lucky enough to own or occupy a city apartment have been quick to meet the demand, with new “hosts” joining the site every day. There are Airbnb kiosks on London’s high streets where tourists can book a property like they used to book a cab.’
Tanfield Chambers, 5th August 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘Development work that restricts natural sunlight to property can in principle be a breach of a ‘quiet enjoyment’ covenant in a lease, even where no formal right to light exists, according to the county court.’
OUT-LAW.com, 17th August 2016
Source: www.out-law.com
‘A tenant was unable to exercise a break clause in a commercial lease due to its failure to remove partitioning that it had installed. This meant it had not provided vacant possession of the property, which was required by the lease as a condition of effective exercise of the break clause, the High Court has ruled.’
OUT-LAW.com, 11th August 2016
Source: www.out-law.com
‘Did you know that a judge of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) may be able to hear a county court case and vice versa? Under a scheme being piloted at present, such a thing is indeed possible.’
Hardwicke Chambers, 13th June 2016
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
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