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Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER
Published: 21 December 2007

Cash blow for new group as ruling bans 40p charge

Leaseholders’ legal challenge succeeds in outlawing weekly fee

A groundbreaking legal challenge has outlawed a 40p-a-week charge which funds a group representing leaseholders.
The result throws into disarray plans for a new leaseholders association, which was to have full-time officials and an office, paid for from the £200,000 a year raised from the charge.
Since October, 10,000 leaseholders – owners of former council homes – have paid 40p a week or £20 a year towards the costs of the new association. The challenge to this charge was mounted by Islington Leaseholders Action Group (ILAG).
Leasehold Valuation Tribunal chairman JSL Goulden ruled that leases did not allow a charge to be levied to fund the new association.
ILAG member Michael Read said the ruling was “inevitable and unequivocal”.
He added: “The tribunal chair comprehensively ruled out the legal framework for the council making a charge. The judgment is so absolute it is difficult to believe anyone with even a basic understanding of landlord and tenant law could possibly believe there was a counter-argument.”
Homes for Islington – the council’s housing agency – will decide early in the new year whether to appeal against the ruling.
Mr Read, who announced the intention to mount the legal challenge in the Tribune earlier this year, was critical of the new members of the leaseholders association.
“We have made the legal advice we have acted upon available to all interested parties,” he added. “They have ignored this advice. So while asserting their intention to create a service offering legal advice to leaseholders they have wilfully ignored all professional advice proffered to them.”
A Homes for Islington spokesman said: “We are obviously disappointed with the result. We will be looking at the judgment and considering the options before we make any decision on how to proceed.”
Brian Potter, chairman of the Federation of Islington Tenants Associations who has been elected to the new group, said: “I haven’t seen the details of the result so I don’t know what it means.
“We had advice that the charge was perfectly legal. The majority of leaseholders support us.”

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