Rights to Manage and Service Charges – Resolving the problems

Contents

Service charges are an inherent source of tension between landlords and tenants in multi-let buildings. This on-line seminar looks at the practical impact of the numerous recent decisions on a landlord’s ability to recover in full – including the recoverability of the costs of legal services, repair works and the impact of residential tenants’ rights under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, as well as the difficulties for tenants in controlling service costs through the exercise of the Right to Manage under the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002. Overarching the seminar is the recent Supreme Court’s view on interpretation – and why tenants may not always be successful – in Arnold v Britton.

Learning Objectives

As a result of watching this video, delegates will:

• Understand how service charge clauses will be interpreted by the courts and the impact of the length of the lease on service charge recoverability
• Be aware of both statutory and lease procedural requirements for service charge recoverability, and the need to follow them
• Understand the impact of recent case law on setting up Right to Manage companies, and drafting and serving acquisition and other notices under the 2002 Act
• Be alert to the problems of managing appurtenant property under the Right to Manage
• Be able to advise landlords of some of the unresolved problems – and how to approach them – associated with the Right to Manage and mixed use buildings / estates

Speaker

SARAH THOMPSON-COPSEY

Sarah Thompson-Copsey is a former property litigation partner at the City law firm now known as Dentons, handling all types of commercial property problems, but with an emphasis on avoiding & resolving commercial landlord and tenant disputes. Sarah now works as a freelance lecturer, trainer and author and lectures & writes regularly on commercial property topics, as well as providing independent auditing and consulting services for law firms.

Sarah is co-author of Tenants’ Pre-emption Rights: A landlord’s guide to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (Jordans) and Mixed Use and Residential Tenants’ Rights: The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and Leasehold Enfranchisement, (Elsevier 2009). She is also on the property consultation board of Practical Law Company and a site editor for the Property Law website at www.propertylawuk.net.