House prices are rising, buyers are paying well over the asking price, and many cash offers are being made. In spite of the pandemic, the demand for houses remains strong and it seems as though first-time buyers are having to find ways of competing in a...

My residential tenant is in rent arrears as a result of COVID -19  – What can I do? Tenants continue to have a liability to pay their rent and abide by all of the other terms of their tenancy agreements. Unfortunately, if your tenant gets...

Mark Eaton of HPLP Solicitors has successfully acted for a number of leaseholders in striking out an application made by Wandsworth Council to the First-tier Tribunal under its statutory ‘service charge’ jurisdiction under section 27A Landlord...

Service charges  can be paid and then challenged later. Or can they? The right to challenge after payment is found in the  Landlord & Tenant  Act 1985. That Act says that service charges cannot be challenged in the courts if...

The Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) (England) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2016 (SI 2016/1118) were made on 17 November 2016 and come into force on 1 December 2016.  The statutory instrument is here . The regulations amend the...

Pineport Ltd v Grangeglen Ltd [2016] EWHC 1318 (Ch) How long can a tenant wait before seeking relief from forfeiture? In this case a commercial tenant , whose long lease had been forfeited by peaceable re-entry for non-payment of rent, was entitled to...

1. Chaplair Limited v Kumari [2015] EWCA Civ 798 Many landlords issue money claims for service charges arrears in order to obtain judgment as a precursor  to taking  forfeiture proceedings. Their claims will  be allocated to the small...

We are seeing more and more cases where a tenant of a long residential leases lets out his or her property on short term lets.   In Nemcova v Fairfield Rents Limited [2016] UKUT 303 (LC) , Ms Nemcova gave evidence that she only let the property...

Cardiff Community Housing Association Limited v Kahar [2016] UKUT 0279 (LC) This is a case about service charges and an assured tenancy . The tenant, Mrs Kahar, didn’t think that she should pay service charges because her tenancy agreement failed...

Mark Eaton of H.P.L.P successfully acted for a Residents' Association and Individual freeholders in opposing an application by a resident to allow her to extend her house in compliance with planning permission. All properties on the estate were...

Less than a year after the last increase in court fees, the cost of issuing money claims has now been increased above a certain threshold. The fee is calculated by reference to the value of the claim including interest. The tiered fees up to...

On 22 April 2014, Civil and Family Court fees increased significantly. For possession claims, it has increased from £175 to £280 for claims sent to the court to issue. For Possession Claims Online (PCOL) the rate has dramatically increased...

The 79 th amendment to the Civil Procedure Rules have significant changes for social landlords. The changes came into force on 6 April 2015. There is a new Pre-Action Protocol for Possession Claims by Social Landlords . Part 1 contains preliminaries...

The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 came into force on 15 October 2013. The government estimates that around 100,000 properties are unlawfully sublet. The act creates two new criminal offences of unlawful subletting by assured and secure...

Leases often set out a requirement that the sum due in service charges should be certified by an accountant as soon as possible after the end of the financial year. Such a clause was in the leases considered in CLACY v SANCHEZ [2015] UKUT 0387 (LC)¸...

There have been 2 significant reported cases this year regarding leases and improvements. I) WAALER v THE LONDON BOROUGH OF HOUNSLOW [2015] UKUT 0017 (LC) 4 1.This case was about whether particular improvements to a property carried out by a...

One summer evening in 2010, Mr Samuel Edwards was taking rubbish out of the second floor flat which he and his partner rented from the leaseholder of the flat, Mr Kumarasamy. Unfortunately, Mr Edwards slipped on uneven paving stones and hurt his knee. He...

This is a significant case about the costs which a landlord can claim from a tenant under a clause which is found in most leases. This is where the tenant covenants: To pay all reasonable costs charges and expenses ( including solicitors' costs...

This was an appeal to the Supreme Court of a 2013 hearing. The case concerned a number of chalets in a leisure park, each of which was subject to a 99 year lease from 25/12/1974. In issue was the interpretation of a clause requiring the lessees to pay...

If a landlord does not carry out works and the building deteriorates, does the tenant have to pay to remedy the consequential problems? The answer is no: he will have a claim in damages for breach of covenant and he can set off that claim against his...

If your property has a problem and the local authority decides that the problem is serious enough to be regarded as a Category 1 or 2 hazard, then it can serve an Improvement Notice on you obliging you to carry out works. Under the Housing, Health and...

Many landowners assume that the existence of T marks on a conveyance or Land Registry plan is the final word on ownership, but that is not correct. The case Lanfear v Chandler [2013] EWCA Civ 1497 concerned the construction of a car port by Mrs...

The names Morshead Mansions / Di Marco may be familiar to leaseholders whose freehold is owned by a company of which they are members. A well known dispute in 2008 clarified that sums equivalent to service charges could be demanded of leaseholders by...

The recent case of Spencer v Taylor has simplified matters relating to the differing section 21 notices to the benefit of landlords . Previously under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988, there were two procedures for recovering possession with two...

Forfeiture of residential leases is never the easiest subject. The courts often seek to protect tenants from the ultimate sanction of losing their home or business premises. A recent case has added to the confusion. The old rule of thumb used to be: in...