Are you being served?

• Metropolitan Property Realisations v John Keith Moss: applying principles of common sense to service charge disputes.

High street solicitors who do any property work constantly get queries from clients about service charges for leaseholds, while there is quite a substantial cadre of solicitor and barrister lawyers doing these cases in the Property Tribunal. A landmark decision has been made in Metropolitan Property Realisations v John Keith Moss, CHI/29 UN/LIS/2018/0039, 7 June 2019: it neatly sets out all the normal questions and how the tribunal is approaching them, and forms the basis of this summary.

Limitation of service charges: reasonableness

(1) Relevant costs shall be taken into account in determining the account of a service charge payable for a period:

(a) only to the extent that they are reasonably incurred; and

(b) where they are incurred on the provision of services or the carrying out of works, only if the services or works are of a reasonable standard, and the amount payable