By Christopher Last, Legal Adviser
This article originally appeared in News on the Block in January 2012
Most legal advisers and many leaseholders are familiar with the right to be provided with a summary of relevant service charge costs under Section 21 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. However, a little-known legal right passes great numbers of leaseholders by every year owing to its relative obscurity.
Under Section 84 of the Housing Act 1996, residential long leaseholders who have formed a recognised tenants’ association have the right to appoint a surveyor to advise them on matters relating to service charges. The Act reveals a few otherwise hidden benefits: the right to inspect documents and the right to inspect the premises.
Document Inspection
The surveyor is entitled to require the landlord or any other relevant person (e.g. a managing agent) to afford him reasonable facilities for inspecting any documents, the sight of which is reasonably required by him for the purposes of his functions, and to afford him reasonable facilities for taking copies of or extracts from any such documents.
A request for access to the documents must be made in writing. Access must be granted within one month of the request being made.
Property Inspection
The surveyor also has the right to inspect the common parts of relevant premises or appurtenant property. Generally, these terms are defined broadly. A request for access must be made in writing to the landlord by the surveyor.
Cost
Access should be granted to the surveyor free of charge, but the freeholder may charge back to the leaseholders any reasonable costs incurred by way of administration charge under the lease terms.
Enforcement
If the freeholder refuses to comply with either of the above requests, an application to the court can be made within four months by the surveyor to enforce compliance. The court has broad discretion, however, when ordering enforcement. They may either make an order in general terms or make an order for the freeholder or relevant person to do specific things.
It is important that the above rights are recognised and used, as they grant more access to information than the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. That Act only allows access to information about the previous accounting year, whereas under the 1996 Act the surveyor may require access to any documentation he considers necessary, with no historical limitation. This can be of importance to leaseholders seeking determination of service charges over several years,and could have devastating consequences to a landlord if a surveyor can illustrate historic neglect through lack of investment that would have been otherwise difficult to prove.
Given the frustration of many leaseholders over the lack of information provided to them by their freeholders in relation to service charges, more should avail themselves of this important right.
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