Landlords have been warned that a recently-discovered Tribunal decision will limit the ability of those operating rental properties to fight councils who issue an Improvement Notice.

The case, which has been highlighted by the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), follows an attempt by Lambeth council to make a landlord upgrade a property via an Improvement Notice.

These are regularly used by local authorities to force landlords to make improvements following complaints by tenants and/or inspections by council officers.

Upper Tribunal ruling

Until now, landlords could file appeals against Improvement Notices and then make some changes to the property in question, then have the property re-assessed and have the action stopped.

But during an Upper Tribunal hearing following an appeal by Manaquel Company Ltd which had appealed an Improvement Notice by Lambeth, the judge said, after considering a previous case (Hussain & Ors vs Waltham Forest council), that going forward tribunals should only look at whether a council’s original decision and handling of an Improvement Notice was correct.

Therefore, going forward tribunal will not have to rehear the matter and potentially quash the notice based on the condition of the property – and this is the important it – on the date of appeal but instead its original condition.

Dan Cumming (main image) the NRLA’s policy officer, says this change means more landlords will find it harder to appeal Improvement Notices.

“Successful appeals will now be limited to occasions where the local authority made an error at the point the notice was served,” he says.

“This may also lead to more landlords asking to vary the improvement notice [rather than fight it].”

Read the NRLA commentary in full.