How often do tribunals reduce gardening and grounds charges?
Across 457 individually challenged gardening and grounds items in First-tier Tribunal service charge decisions from 2019–2026, 41.1% were reduced or disallowed; where the tribunal made a reduction, the median was 50% (n=95 reductions with amounts stated). (n=457, as of 15 August 2026)
The figures on this page cover every individually challenged gardening and grounds item in our corpus of published First-tier Tribunal service charge decisions, and are recomputed nightly.
About these figures: Outcomes reflect disputes that reached the First-tier Tribunal, not portfolio-wide quality. Small samples are noisy; every figure links to the underlying decisions.
Outcomes for challenged gardening and grounds items
| Outcome | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reduced | 130 | 28.4% |
| Disallowed entirely | 58 | 12.7% |
| Allowed in full | 256 | 56% |
| Withdrawn | 7 | 1.5% |
Most common grounds when the tribunal cut the charge
- Standard not reasonable (s19(1)(b)) — 8 items
- Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) — 94 items
- Landlord could not evidence the cost — 49 items
- Not payable under the lease — 25 items
- Other grounds — 9 items
- Poor standard of work — 30 items
- Apportionment error — 16 items
- Works not necessary — 17 items
By tribunal region
| Region | Items (n) | Reduced or disallowed | Median reduction when reduced |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 233 | 39.9% | 50% |
| Eastern | 57 | 47.4% | 51.9% |
| Southern | 85 | 47.1% | 56.7% |
| Northern | 58 | 32.8% | 55.4% |
Methodology
These statistics are computed from the published decisions of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) in service charge cases (case types LSC, LIS and LDC). Each decision is parsed into a structured record — the sums challenged, the sums allowed, the outcome per cost head, and the orders made — and the aggregates on this page are recomputed nightly in plain arithmetic from those records. No figure on this page is estimated, modelled or hand-typed; each carries its sample size. Current corpus: 4,244 decisions covering 18,031 individually disputed items, last updated 15 August 2026.
Read this before quoting: Outcomes reflect disputes that reached the First-tier Tribunal, not portfolio-wide quality. Small samples are noisy; every figure links to the underlying decisions.