Service Charges & Estate Management Update – December 2016

There is only one case in this month’s update: Avon Freeholds Limited v Alexander Garnier [2016] UKUT 477 (LC) which concerns whether a tenant had been under duress and had not ‘agreed’ to pay an administration charge.

Avon Freeholds Limited v Alexander Garnier [2016] UKUT 477 (LC)

No duress had been applied by a landlord on his tenant when the former sought retrospective consent for works undertaken to his property and payment was then demanded for the same. An explicit statement from the tenant that a payment was “fine” constituted an acceptance of the administration charge such that the First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) had had no jurisdiction to determine it.

Diane Doliveux discusses in more detail here.