How often do tribunals reduce management fee charges?
Across 1,266 individually challenged management fee items in First-tier Tribunal service charge decisions from 2019–2026, 57.4% were reduced or disallowed; where the tribunal made a reduction, the median was 30.6% (n=341 reductions with amounts stated). (n=1,266, as of 4 July 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 | 578 | 45.7% |
| Disallowed entirely | 149 | 11.8% |
| Allowed in full | 504 | 39.8% |
| Withdrawn | 19 | 1.5% |
Most common grounds when the tribunal cut the charge
- Other grounds — 64 items
- Apportionment error — 48 items
- Standard not reasonable (s19(1)(b)) — 67 items
- Not payable under the lease — 101 items
- Fee excessive for service delivered — 499 items
- Landlord could not evidence the cost — 105 items
- Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) — 173 items
- No Section 20 consultation — 44 items
By tribunal region
| Region | Items (n) | Reduced or disallowed | Median reduction when reduced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midlands | 58 | 53.4% | 37% |
| Eastern | 130 | 56.9% | 27.8% |
| Southern | 232 | 62.5% | 33.3% |
| Northern | 153 | 43.8% | 25% |
| London | 693 | 59.2% | 30.9% |
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: 2,383 decisions covering 12,898 individually disputed items, last updated 4 July 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.