In the second part in the series, Philip Sissons & Joseph Ollech study costs recovery in long residential lease disputes
- 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 via the service charge.
In Pt 1 we considered the scope of the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) FTT’s jurisdiction to award costs under the 2013 rules which govern its procedure and the recent decision of the Upper Tribunal in Willow Court Management Co (1985) Ltd v Alexander [2016] UKUT 290 (LC) clarifying the scope of that jursidiction. Here we focus on the second alternative route by which a landlord might be able to recoup costs incurred in proceedings before the FTT; passing the costs through the service charge so that all of the tenants within the service charge regime pay a share. Of course, whether or not a landlord can pursue this course of action will depend primarly on the particular wording of the lease in question. However, some general principles can be deduced from recent case law.
In
