Islington Council leaseholders who have paid any bill for major works in the twenty years before 2003 could get their money back. This is because of a landmark ruling by the Lands Tribunal in August.
In a case involving Islington Council, the tribunal ruled the authority’s consultation process was flawed. It said the council failed to consult properly on the work being done on a leaseholder’s flat.
The immediate result of that decision is that the council will not be able to claim for work done on the flat of Mrs Lucy Shehata Abdel-Malek, at Brancaster House, in Corsica Street. The council had presented her with a bill for more than £10,000. She can only now be charged a nominal £500.
In addition, more than 50 leaseholders living in Brancaster House, Blair Close Northampton Park and Seaforth Crescent, all of whom were charged under the same contract as Mrs Abdel-Malek, will be able to recover money they have paid.
But the case has much wider implications for all of Islington’s 11,000 leaseholders who could potentially claim millions of pounds. This is because council officers said in evidence to a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal, on the same case a year before, that they had followed similar consultation procedures across all major works contracts for many years.
Mr Steven Inskip, a solicitor with the council’s legal department, told the LVT that the manner in which the tenders were submitted with a Section 20 consultation notice was “a matter of council policy”. In a submission which appears in retrospect to be one of blinding stupidity he also told the LVT that the Act “does not require any estimate to be meaningful”. The findings of LVT and LT depended on exactly that requirement: the estimates being meaningful.
Mrs Abdel-Malek was represented by the Islington Legal Centre.
