Lonestar Properties Limited v Lecacheur
| Tribunal | The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) |
| Judge | Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President |
| Hearing | 11 August 2026 |
| Decision | 24 August 2026 |
| Appellant | Lonestar Properties Limited, the landlord of both buildings |
| Respondents | Laurence Lecacheur and Xavier Lecacheur, leaseholders of a maisonette at No.14 |
| Appeal from | First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber), decision of 22 December 2025 |
| Case references | LC-2026-112; below, LON/00BK/LAM/2025/0003 |
| Property | Nos. 12 and 14 Abercorn Place, London NW8 |
| Matter | Whether a manager may be appointed under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 over two adjoining buildings in a terrace, and whether it was just and convenient to do so on this evidence |
| Outcome | Appeal allowed in part. The manager remains in post, her functions to be confined to No.14 |
Summary
Two adjoining houses in a terrace, each holding two maisonettes, with one penthouse flat spanning the top floor of both. The leaseholders of a maisonette in No.14 asked the tribunal for a manager. In December 2025 it appointed one over both houses. The landlord appealed.
The challenge to jurisdiction failed. Part II of the 1987 Act reaches the whole or part of a building holding two or more flats, and two houses side by side in a terrace answer that. The appeal succeeded on the discretion. Nothing explained why the two houses had to be managed as one, and the tribunal never asked whether an order over No.14 alone would do the same work.
Background and facts
Nos. 12 and 14 Abercorn Place are two adjoining houses in a terrace running from Nos. 8 to 22. Each holds two maisonettes let on long leases granted in 2005. One penthouse flat spans the top floor of both and is reached only from No.12. Both maisonettes at No.12 and the penthouse belong to the same two leaseholders, who live there and hold 60 per cent of the shares in the landlord company.
Under the respondents' lease the landlord's covenants to insure and to repair are given for No.14 alone. The parties had been to the tribunal before. Works planned in 2022 for both buildings were charged in advance, then carried out at No.12 only. In March 2024 the tribunal held that the leaseholders of No.14 owed nothing towards them, so the £11,696 demanded of the respondents was not payable, and it found the two roofs separated by a brick structure.
The issue
Whether the tribunal has power to appoint a manager over two separate buildings, and if it has, whether its reasons could support an order covering both.
The decision
Jurisdiction was answered by reading section 21. Part II applies to the whole or part of a building where that building or part contains two or more flats. Building is not defined and carries its ordinary meaning of a built structure. No.12 is a building, so is No.14, and so is the terrace of which the two together form part.
Two buildings standing side by side as part of a terrace are therefore part of a building to which Part II applies and in respect of which an application may be made, provided they contain at least two flats.Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, paragraph 44
Nor must the buildings touch. Section 21(4)(b) allows an application in respect of two or more sets of premises, and section 24(3) allows the order to be wider or narrower than the application. A single leaseholder may apply over any number of buildings.
The third ground succeeded. Two reasons had been given below for managing the buildings as one: they are contiguous, and part of the leased property at No.12 extends over No.14. Contiguity does not separate these houses from any other pair in a terrace. Mutual rights of support and access, and covenants against causing nuisance, are ordinary between terraced buildings. A shared gas and water supply and one meter for the common parts were irrelevant or insubstantial.
In short, nothing in the FTT's decision explains why it was thought to be necessary for the two buildings to be managed together.Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, paragraph 57
The tribunal never weighed the order against its object. The repairs sought were repairs to No.14. It should have asked whether an order limited to No.14 would achieve the same objectives, and its failure to do so undermined the cogency of its decision.
I am satisfied that the appointment of a manager to both buildings was unnecessary and unjustified. It was neither just nor convenient and I allow the appeal on this ground.Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, paragraph 63
The appointment survived. Leaving the leaseholders who control the landlord in charge of work to the building they do not live in was called a conflict of interest and a recipe for further dispute. Company law remedies were an inadequate answer.
Leaseholders should not be expected to have to pursue each other through the courts when Parliament has provided a flexible remedy under Part II of the 1987 Act.Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, paragraph 62
Suitability was not pursued, so the finding below that the manager was a proper appointment stands. Criticisms of how the tribunal handled disrepair, the charges and the approved management code produce no findings on those grounds. The manager stays in post, her functions to be confined to No.14 and the part of the penthouse above it. She remains responsible for both buildings until the modified order is made.
Practical implications
The jurisdiction argument is answered. A leaseholder holding one flat can ask for a manager over a group of buildings, adjoining or detached, so long as each holds two or more flats. Landlords who assumed an application could only reach the applicant's own block should assume otherwise.
The control is the just and convenient test, and it carries a proportionality question answered building by building. An applicant who wants a wide order must show it is needed. Shared services and a penthouse across both roofs did not come close.
Where the leases split the landlord's repairing and insuring covenants building by building, that split is the starting point for the scope of any order. A landlord controlled by leaseholders who live in one of its buildings also has a conflict of interest whenever it decides work on another.
Practice points
- Check the flat count before anything else. Two or more flats in the building or part of a building is the whole of the jurisdictional threshold in section 21(2). Layout, separate registration at the Land Registry and the description of the structure in an earlier decision are beside that question.
- Do not run a jurisdiction argument that is really a discretion argument. The submission that a leaseholder in one building can have no interest in the management of the next one was met with the answer that it said nothing about jurisdiction.
- Plead the case for joint management building by building, with evidence. State what the manager is to do, in which building, and why it cannot be done under separate orders.
- Expect the tribunal to ask whether a narrower order would achieve the same objectives. Ask for the narrower order yourself where the works you want are in one building.
- Read the leases first. Where the landlord insures and repairs each building separately, and the service charge percentages follow that split, the scope of any order should follow it too.
- If the landlord company is controlled by leaseholders occupying one of the buildings, put the conflict of interest in evidence. It was part of why the appointment survived here.
- Do not offer a company law claim as the answer to a management deadlock between leaseholders. Parliament has provided the remedy and the tribunal expects it to be used.
- If you manage your own building without an agent, do not assume the approved residential management code passes you by. The decision records the code's own statement that a landlord who manages is responsible for complying with it, and notes that the point was decided below without the code being consulted.
- Watch the costs protection. An order under section 20C of the 1985 Act was made below, and the equivalent order for the appeal was left open with written submissions due by 21 September 2026.