What happens if your landlord does not consult

If your landlord does not correctly follow the Section 20 consultation process for consulting leaseholders about major works or long-term agreements, you could consider whether to challenge your service charge at a tribunal.

You could also challenge your service charge if you think your landlord has not properly followed the rules about how to consult – for example if they ignored your comments on the proposals.

What the tribunal will consider

Whether it’s worthwhile to challenge your service charge will depend on how your landlord’s failure to consult affected you.

A tribunal will consider whether your landlord consulted properly, but they will only reduce your service charge if you lost money or rights (known as “relevant prejudice”).

For example, you might have paid more than you needed to because you could not nominate a contractor, or the work might have been done to a poor standard because the landlord ignored your comments.

If you did not lose money or rights, the tribunal will usually grant the landlord permission not to consult (dispensation).

If you did lose money or rights, the tribunal will either:

• grant the landlord dispensation on the condition that your service charge is reduced by the amount that you lost
• refuse dispensation and cap the service charge at the threshold of £250 for major works, or £100 a year for qualifying long-term agreements

Find out more: how to challenge your service charge

A tribunal can make decisions about Section 20 consultation, including giving a landlord permission not to follow the consultation requirements (dispensation), if the tribunal thinks this is reasonable.

A legal case in 2013 (Daejan v Benson) set out how the tribunal should deal with applications for dispensation.

The tribunal will focus on the purpose of the regulations, which is to protect leaseholders from paying for work that is not needed, or paying more than is reasonable.

This means that as part of the tribunal case, the leaseholders would need to be able to show the tribunal:

• what they would have said if they had been correctly consulted, such as suggesting changes to the planned work or nominating a cheaper contractor
• that they lost money or rights

If the tribunal agrees that the leaseholders have a credible case, the landlord will then have to provide evidence to disprove their claim.

The tribunal might decide that the landlord has to reduce the service charge to compensate leaseholders for any loss.

The tribunal can agree to the landlord’s application for dispensation with conditions, such as requiring the landlord to pay the leaseholders’ reasonable costs for the tribunal application.

Find out more: applying to the tribunal

Your landlord can apply to the tribunal in advance for permission not to consult if there’s a reason why following the Section 20 process would be unnecessary or impractical.

For example, they might be given permission not to consult if:

• the works are very urgent, such as if the building is unsafe, or if there is a serious leak in the roof
• all the leaseholders have already agreed the work needs to be done
• the work can only be done by a limited number of specialist contractors, such as work on a specific brand of lift, or repairs to heritage stonework

If they get permission not to consult, you can still challenge your service charge if you think it is unreasonable.