LON/00AY/LSC/2021/0153 — service charge decision
In LON/00AY/LSC/2021/0153, decided 15 November 2021, the First-tier Tribunal considered 3 disputed service charge items at Corben Mews, 46-48 Clyston Street, London SW8 4TA and found largely for the leaseholder: 3 items were reduced or disallowed. Full decision on GOV.UK below.
Property: Corben Mews, 46-48 Clyston Street, London SW8 4TA
Decision date: 15 November 2021
Full decision: Read on GOV.UK
Managing agent named in the decision: Eagerstates Ltd.
What was challenged and what the tribunal decided
| Item | Demanded | Allowed | Outcome | Grounds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other charges (2021) | — | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)), Works not necessary, Demand formally invalid |
| Other charges (2021) | — | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Costs unreasonably incurred (s19(1)(a)), Works not necessary, Demand formally invalid |
| Reserve fund contributions (2021) | £303,000 | £0 | Disallowed entirely | Demand formally invalid, Not payable under the lease |
Section 20C order: granted.
Key passages (verbatim)
“The service charges asserted by the Respondent in relation to a 'waking watch' in 2021 are not payable by the Applicants, since they have not been reasonably incurred.”
“It also concludes that the costs of an interim alarm system would also not be reasonably incurred, since they were also contingent on the conclusion in the Hydrock Report that the risk of fire was 'intolerable'.”
“Given there is no power to raise demands for estimated future service charges, the estimated 'Repair fund if needed' of £150,000 per block and Estate 'Repair fund if needed' of £3,000 could not be payable through service charges even if valid demands had been served.”
“Mr Gurvits was a much less satisfactory witness; many of his answers in cross examination were evasive or inherently lacked credibility.”
“Given that the need for these fire safety works was one of the key issues before the tribunal, Mr Gurvits should have been in a position to say definitively whether or not he had arranged for the works to be done, and therefore the tribunal considers his answers to have been unsatisfactory and evasive.”
“the tribunal considers that in choosing to alter the conclusion as to risk in this manner, the authors of the Hydrock Report overstated the risk in a way which was not supported even by their own reasoning. This does undermine the conclusions in the report overall as to risk, and meant that Mr Sun found himself in the position of seeking to defend the report's recommendations by after-the-event justification.”
“To have refused to take that step, because the Tenants would not pay for it, and instead incurred the much greater expense of the waking watch for an apparently indefinite period of time (since Assethold has still taken no steps to resolve the underlying problem with the riser cupboard), appears irrational.”
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.