In a special two-part series, Philip Sissons & Joseph Ollech study costs recovery in long residential lease disputes
- The scope of the FTT’s jurisdiction to award costs under the 2013 rules which govern its procedure.
- An important recent decision of the Upper Tribunal clarifying the scope of that jursidiction.
- Alternative, contractual, routes to cost recovery where recent case-law has clarified the extent to which a landlord might be able to recoup legal costs either directly from the tenant involved in the dispute or via the service charge.
Long residential leases are a fertile source of litigation. Aside from enfranchisement, disputes frequently arise regarding service charges and other breaches of lease covenants and a very large proportion of these disputes are litigated wholly in the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (FTT).
These cases often involve relatively small sums of money or relatively trivial breaches of covenant. However (not least because of the complexity of the statutory regulation of service charges) the legal costs incurred in the proceedings are frequently significant and often disproportionate
