Pursuant to s.35 of the 1987 Act any party to a long lease of a flat may make an application to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) for an order varying the lease. In this case, the flat roof of a ground floor extension was being utilised by the owners of the appellant as a terrace. The FTT was asked to consider the repairing obligations of the roof as the leases did not deal specifically with the point, the extension not having been documented under the ground floor lease (the Lease). An application was made by Mr and Mrs Wilson as tenants (Tenants) of the ground floor flat (Flat 1) to vary the lease pursuant to that statutory provision to clarify the repairing responsibility of the roof terrace as that of Weycroft Weybridge Ltd, as Landlord. At first instance the FTT found in favour of the applicant Tenants that the repairing obligation lay with the respondent Landlord. The Landlord appealed but the UT upheld the decision of the lower tribunal.

Given the recent guidance and wording for contractual provisions to deal with leasehold management issues during the registration gap provided by the City of London Law Society this case highlights the problem which the wording can alleviate. 

An equitable owner cannot be classified as the “landlord” during the gap between legal completion and the registration of the equitable owner as registered proprietor for the purposes of sections 79(6)(a) and 88 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 as the legal interest in the property is still vested in seller pending completion of the registration.