LON/00AF/LSC/2023/0127 — service charge decision
In LON/00AF/LSC/2023/0127, decided 20 November 2023, the First-tier Tribunal considered 5 disputed service charge items at 1 Crompton Court, St Marks Square, Bromley and found largely for the leaseholder: 5 items were reduced or disallowed. Full decision on GOV.UK below.
Property: 1 Crompton Court, St Marks Square, Bromley
Decision date: 20 November 2023
Full decision: Read on GOV.UK
Managing agent named in the decision: Living City Asset Management Limited.
What was challenged and what the tribunal decided
| Item | Demanded | Allowed | Outcome | Grounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lifts (2020) | £268.89 | — | Reduced | Apportionment error, Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) |
| Lifts (2021) | £8.78 | — | Reduced | Apportionment error, Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) |
| Cleaning (2020) | £601.26 | £225 | Reduced | Apportionment error, Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) |
| Cleaning (2021) | £398.58 | £150 | Reduced | Apportionment error, Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)) |
| Cleaning (2022) | £157.77 | £156 | Reduced | Apportionment error |
Section 20C order: granted.
Key passages (verbatim)
“allocating all of these to Crompton Court is not just and equitable. The sign on Lift 2 makes no impact on which lift is summoned and the leaseholders of Keeping Court can easily gain access to their properties via the lift rather than climbing the stairs.”
“the costs associated with Lift 2 contained in the service charge years ending 31 December 2020 and 2021 should be apportioned and charged to the Applicant in the same manner as those were charged in the service charge year ending 31 December 2022.”
“there should be a 50% uplift in the amount payable by the Applicant for that year and so determines the amount payable by him as £225 for the service charge year ending 31 December 2020.”
“£150 is the correct amount payable by the Applicant for 2021, the first normal year of cleaning.”
“the fee charged by the contractor rose by 4% between 2021 and 2022 and accepts this rise is reasonable. This means that the amount payable by the Applicant for 2022 should be £156.”
“this case could have been avoided if the agents had engaged constructively with the Applicant instead of holding onto a patently indefensible position.”
“the Respondent through its agents persisted in adopting an inequitable split of window cleaning costs that produced a patently unfair result.”
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.