Landlord and Tenant - Service charges

- Leasehold Valuation Tribunal's jurisdiction to review reasonableness - not extending to charges already paidR v London Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, Ex parte Daejan Properties Ltd: CA (Lords Justice Simon Brown, May and Dyson): 12 July 2001The landlord was the owner of a block of flats.

Many of the flats in the block were held on long leases under which a service charge was payable by the tenants.In 1999 one the lessees applied to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal under section 19(2A) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 contending that management fees charged by the landlord since 1989 had been excessive.The tribunal held that it had jurisdiction to review service charges which had been paid as well as those still unpaid.

Mr Justice Sullivan refused the landlord's application for judicial review of that decision.

The landlord appealed.Nicholas Dowding QC and Stephen Jourdan (instructed by Memery Crystal) for the landlord.

John Litton (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the tribunal.Held, allowing the appeal, that to accord the tribunal jurisdiction to inquire into the reasonableness of service charges already paid would give rise to a multiplicity of proceedings, a waste of time and money and a need to examine the reasonableness of service charges extending back for an unlimited period; and that, since there were compelling policy considerations against it, the words of section 19(2A) would not be construed so as to extend the tribunal's jurisdiction to services charges already paid.