HAV/45UC/LSC/2025/0789 & others — service charge decision
In HAV/45UC/LSC/2025/0789 & others, decided 18 May 2026, the First-tier Tribunal considered 5 disputed service charge items at Eversley Court, 18 Aldwick Avenue, Bognor Regis, West Sussex and reached a mixed result: 4 items were reduced or disallowed. Full decision on GOV.UK below.
Property: Eversley Court, 18 Aldwick Avenue, Bognor Regis, West Sussex
Decision date: 18 May 2026
Full decision: Read on GOV.UK
What was challenged and what the tribunal decided
| Item | Demanded | Allowed | Outcome | Grounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Repairs & maintenance (2024-2025) | £7,188 | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Landlord could not evidence the cost, Not payable under the lease |
| Legal & professional costs (2024-2025) | £2,750 | £2,750 | Allowed in full | — |
| Major works | — | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Not payable under the lease |
| Management fees (2023-2024) | £480 | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Not payable under the lease |
| Management fees (2024-2025) | £840 | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Not payable under the lease |
Section 20C order: granted. Section 20ZA dispensation: granted.
Key passages (verbatim)
“The Respondent failed to prove its case. The Tribunal determined that no service charges were payable by the Applicants in respect of this item.”
“The Tribunal determines that the service costs incurred by the Respondent were ones which it was able to incur and that the charges charged to the Applicants in respect of the structural engineer fees are payable.”
“The expenditure is to rectify work which was not payable by service charges to a demised part and which the Tribunal determines is not payable by service charges now.”
“The Tribunal determines that the Lease does not enable the recovery by the Respondent of fees for its own time”
“It follows from the fact that the Lease does not permit the Respondent to charge fees for its own work that the service charges demanded which would pay towards the amount of those fees are not payable.”
“There was a large degree of overlap between the two bundles, which was unhelpful and where a single bundle across the two applications would have been preferable.”
“The Respondent provided no good evidence of the cause of the flooding or of the nature of it. Most significantly, in a situation in which there could be a number of potential causes, the Respondent did not provide any expert opinion as to the actual cause. The summary of the Respondent's case was that when the Tribunal suggested that there was no evidence of the cause of the problem, Mr Khan simply replied that it flooded and came in through the walls.”
“The document is not an expert report in these proceedings, there is not nearly adequate information about the expertise of the author and there was an apparent conjunction of interest of the Respondent and the agent given that the agent was proposed to be instructed by the Respondent - indeed part of the document sought to advance the merits of instructing that practice.”
“The Tribunal raised the above with Mr Khan in the hearing. He did not accept the point despite the opinion being that of his engineer.”
This summary is assembled from the structured record of the published decision; amounts appear only where the tribunal stated them. Always rely on the full decision itself.