How often do tribunals reduce management fee charges?
Across 1,588 individually challenged management fee items in First-tier Tribunal service charge decisions from 2019–2026, 56.4% were reduced or disallowed; where the tribunal made a reduction, the median was 33.3% (n=435 reductions with amounts stated). (n=1,588, as of 15 August 2026)
The figures on this page cover every individually challenged management fee 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 management fee items
| Outcome | Items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Reduced | 722 | 45.5% |
| Disallowed entirely | 174 | 11% |
| Allowed in full | 649 | 40.9% |
| Withdrawn | 22 | 1.4% |
Most common grounds when the tribunal cut the charge
- Standard not reasonable (s19(1)(b)) — 92 items
- Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) — 212 items
- Landlord could not evidence the cost — 141 items
- Not payable under the lease — 113 items
- Other grounds — 78 items
- Fee excessive for service delivered — 617 items
- Apportionment error — 52 items
- No Section 20 consultation — 46 items
By tribunal region
| Region | Items (n) | Reduced or disallowed | Median reduction when reduced |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 877 | 58.3% | 35.7% |
| Eastern | 181 | 55.2% | 26.8% |
| Southern | 277 | 62.8% | 33.3% |
| Midlands | 74 | 50% | 13.3% |
| Northern | 179 | 41.3% | 28.4% |
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.