By section 21B(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 (LTA 1985), ‘A demand for the payment of a service charge must be accompanied by a summary of the rights and obligations of tenants of dwellings in relation to service charges.’ A 'service charge' means an amount payable by a tenant of a

A tenant who holds a long lease of a flat has a statutory right (subject to compliance with qualifying criteria) to a 90-year extension of the lease under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (LRHUDA 1993), on broadly the same terms as the existing lease for a peppercorn rent, upon payment of a premium. The right applies if the tenant has owned the leasehold interest in the flat for a continuous period of at least two years and

This will depend on whether a tenant: • still wishes to take a renewal lease and, accordingly, is proposing to serve a section 26 request in an attempt to bring the existing tenancy to an end and enter into the renewal tenancy earlier • does not wish to take a renewal lease and, accordingly, is proposing to serve a section 27 notice to terminate the existing tenancy, without a renewal tenancy Can a tenant serve a section 26 request after a landlord has served a section 25 notice? Once a section 25 notice has been served, the tenant is precluded from serving a section 26 request and vice-versa (section 26(4) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954)). See Practice

Where a landlord wishes to dispose of his interest in a property which contains residential flats and to which the right of first refusal contained in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (LTA 1987) applies, he must first give notice to the tenants before disposing of it. LTA 1987 contains five different types of notice which apply depending upon the type of intended disposal. LTA 1987, s 5B relates to an intention to sell at public auction. Where the landlord wishes to dispose of his interest at auction, he must give notice between four and six months prior to the date of the auction, which must include the principal terms

Validity of section 42 notice The tenant’s notice is not invalidated where the stipulations laid out in section 42(3) of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (LRHUDA 1993) have not been accurately produced. Where this includes a wrongly specified property, the court may give leave on certain terms for it to be amended. However, there is no such power to waive

Section 13 of the Housing Act 1988 (HA 1988) allows a landlord of a residential statutory periodic tenancy to increase the rent payable. Any rent increase cannot take place within the first 52 weeks of a periodic tenancy and, though notice can be served during the fixed term of an assured shorthold tenancy, the rent increase cannot take effect until the tenancy has become periodic. The statutory provisions do not overrule any contractual rent increase term contained within the lease, which will take precedence. The formalities for a rent increase under HA 1988, s 13 are that the landlord must serve notice of the rent increase in the prescribed form (Form 4). The prescribed form includes information on the right of the tenant to refer the proposed

If the tenant is not going to be required to pay rent, then it would be wrong to record in the lease that the rent payable is the market rent when the bargain between the landlord and the tenant is a peppercorn. A side letter may be used where the rent

If the landlord exercises a break option by serving a break notice, this will determine the contractual term of the tenancy on the date specified in the notice. If the tenancy is one to which the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954) applies, then it will continue by virtue of LTA 1954, s 24(1) unless

The recent decision in Moorjani v Durban Estates Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 1252 dealt with the issue of whether a tenant could still claim loss if they had vacated the property for reasons unrelated to the landlord’s breach of repairing obligation. The question posed to the court was whether the tenant, under a long lease of a residential flat, could claim to have suffered loss arising from a period of disrepair affecting both the flat and the common parts in the building attributable to the landlord’s breach of its express obligations to the tenant, despite the fact that during that period, and for reasons unconnected with the disrepair, the tenant chose to live elsewhere, leaving the flat vacant. The underlying issue was whether the loss suffered by the tenant in that situation is based on: • the impairment of the amenity value of the tenant’s proprietary interest

The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (LTA 1987) provides to certain qualifying tenants of properties a right of first refusal. This means that if the landlord is seeking to dispose of their interest in the property (whether as freeholder or superior leaseholder) the landlord must offer the interest to those qualifying tenants first. A failure to do so is not only a criminal offence but can involve the unwinding of a transaction done in breach of its provisions, which could lead to a substantial damages claim. The right generally arises where there are two or more qualifying flats within the premises. The procedure that the landlord must follow is set out in LTA 1987, s 5 and the

It is assumed that the lease contains a covenant not to carry out alterations without the consent of the landlord. If the tenant has carried out alterations to the property without the landlord’s consent, the tenant will be in breach of covenant and the landlord will be able to take action to enforce the covenant. The

We have been unable to locate any authority which is directly in point on this question. However, the decision of the Court of Appeal in Speiro Lechouritis v Goldmile Properties Ltd appears to lend strong support for the proposition