Landlords, leaseholders, and mobile home owners appear to be being asked to subsidise increased tribunal costs caused by more section 13 notices amid fee increases across the entire sweep of First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) work, says a top property lawyer.

The government has amended a raft of court and tribunal fees - taking effect on 13th July – including a modest increase to the issue fee for a possession claim in the county court – up from £404 to 415 - while some of the fees in the Upper Tribunal will fall slightly.

Landlords appealing local authority notices will have to pay more, which mirror large increases already made for some penalties a few months ago but there are also significant increases for a range of leaseholder and mobile home matters, explains David Smith, partner at Bishop & Sewell. This includes applications relating to leasehold enfranchisement and applications to challenge a leasehold management charge, which will both need a £114 application fee and £227 hearing fee.

Unfair

“It looks a little like landlords, leaseholders, and mobile home owners are being asked to subsidise increased FTT costs caused by more s13 notices, which seems pretty unfair to me,” says Smith.

Just three months after the government announced that tenants would have to pay a fee of £47 to take an appeal against a section 13 rent increase to the Tribunal, it has wiped that fee back out so that appeals will be free again.

“I have no idea why this has happened,” adds Smith. “I assume that initial indications are that there are very few appeals (although it seems a bit premature - I do not expect a lot of increases until we are a year in) or the protests of tenant groups against these fees have landed. The removal of this fee is likely to cause a lot of concern for landlords worried about a surge in appeals.”

‍