UK Construction and Law
A tribunal may appoint one manager over several buildings, but it must ask whether managing the one that needs the repairs would do the job
By Staff Writer | 26 August 2026
The jurisdiction argument failed outright: two houses in a terrace are part of a building, and a single leaseholder may apply for a manager over any number of buildings. The appointment was still cut back to one address, because the tribunal below never tested whether the wider order was proportionate to the repairs it was meant to deliver.
The First-tier Tribunal had appointed a manager in December 2025 over two adjoining houses in a longer terrace in north west London, on the application of leaseholders who hold a long lease of a flat in one of them. Each of the two houses contains two self-contained maisonettes. The flats in the neighbouring house all belong to the same leaseholder. The landlord company appealed on four grounds, and the Deputy Chamber President allowed the appeal in part.
Jurisdiction: the answer is in section 21
The landlord's first argument was that Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 does not permit an appointment over premises comprising two buildings, because a leaseholder in one has no interest in the management of the other. The Upper Tribunal held that the proposition was plainly wrong and that none of the submissions made in support of it went to jurisdiction at all.
Section 21(2) applies Part II to premises consisting of the whole or part of a building where the building or part contains two or more flats. The word building is not defined and bears its ordinary meaning. Each house is a building; so is the whole terrace of which both form part; and viewed together the two houses are jointly part of that larger building.
There is nothing to suggest that a manager may only be appointed to manage the smallest possible unit
Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President of the Upper Tribunal, Lands Chamber
Nor do the buildings have to touch. Section 21(4)(b) allows an application in respect of two or more premises to which Part II applies, and section 24(3) allows an order over less than the premises applied for, so two entirely detached buildings could be covered by a single order provided each contains at least two flats. The Tribunal also rejected the suggestion that an applicant must be a leaseholder in each building: there is no minimum number of applicants under Part II, and a single leaseholder may apply for a manager over any number of buildings. The second ground, an issue estoppel said to arise from an earlier description of the two houses as separate buildings, fell away once jurisdiction was established.
Where the tribunal below went wrong
Having the power is not the same as exercising it correctly. The objectives behind the application were the delivery of a long delayed programme of repairs to one of the two houses, mirroring roof and structural work already carried out to the other, together with issues affecting that house alone. The First-tier Tribunal did not consider whether appointing a manager over that one house would achieve the same objectives, and reached a conclusion about the need for joint management that no evidence supported. That failure was treated as a substantial defect in its reasoning, and the appointment over both buildings was held to be neither just nor convenient.
What was left standing is the appointment itself. The Tribunal was clear that there were proper grounds for a manager: the relationship between the parties had broken down, the landlord's directors had a conflict of interest in controlling work to a building in which the applicants hold their lease, and remedies under company law were an inadequate answer.
The order, and the costs
The manager stays in post, tasked with commissioning the repairs that prompted the application, but her responsibilities are to be confined to the one house, including the part of the top floor flat that sits above it and excluding any part above the neighbour. The parties are invited to agree the modifications with the manager, and if they cannot they may submit draft orders within one month. Until the modified order is made, the manager remains responsible for both buildings.
The First-tier Tribunal had made an order under section 20C of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 preventing the landlord adding its costs of those proceedings to the service charge. The leaseholders have asked for the same protection for the appeal, and the landlord has until 21 September 2026 to respond in writing.
For anyone bringing or resisting one of these applications, the practical shift is where the argument should be aimed. Attacking jurisdiction on the ground that the premises are more than one building is now clearly hopeless. The live question is scope, and it is answered with evidence about which building needs what, and whether a narrower order would do the same work.