Repairing damage and remedying a structural defect can overlap. A single programme of work may do both. Whether a leaseholder must contribute to its cost depends on the lease and the applicable law, not simply on the landlord describing the project as “repairs”.
City of London v Various Leaseholders of Great Arthur House [2021] EWCA Civ 431 is a useful example for law students. The Court of Appeal considered a particular definition of recoverable repairs in Right to Buy leases. It did not establish that leaseholders can never be charged for structural work.
What was the Great Arthur House dispute about?
Great Arthur House is a block of flats on London’s Golden Lane Estate. The dispute concerned the leaseholders’ obligation to contribute to substantial works following longstanding water penetration.
The leases defined “specified repairs”. One limb covered structural and exterior repairs but excluded making good structural defects. Another addressed structural defects subject to conditions involving prior notification or when the landlord became aware of them.
The landlord argued that work could be recoverable as repair despite also eliminating a defect. The Court of Appeal upheld the interpretation that work making good structural defects could not be charged under the first limb merely because it also repaired deterioration; the second limb’s conditions mattered. See the official case record and judgment, especially paragraphs 2, 8 and 51–54.
Why does the wording matter so much?
The lesson is to read a charging clause as a whole. Do not stop at the word “repairs” if the same definition contains an exclusion and a separate route dealing with the excluded category.
Keep two questions distinct when analysing a problem:
- Who has the obligation to carry out the work?
- Which costs can that person recover from someone else?
Those questions may be governed by different provisions. Showing that a landlord must address a problem does not, by itself, identify a term allowing the bill to be passed on.
Similarly, proving that a project is useful or urgently needed does not remove the need to identify the source of the claimed payment obligation.
A worked clause-reading exercise
Consider this simplified teaching example, which is not the wording of the Great Arthur House leases:
“The tenant contributes to exterior repairs, excluding correction of design defects. Costs of correcting a design defect are recoverable only if the defect was listed in Schedule A before the lease was granted.”
A façade has leaked because of a design defect. The landlord replaces it, both stopping the leak and correcting the design. The defect was not listed in Schedule A.
Step one: identify the claimed route. The landlord points to exterior repairs.
Step two: apply the qualification. That route expressly excludes correction of design defects. Calling the work a repair does not answer the exclusion.
Step three: test the alternative route. The clause permits recovery for correcting a listed defect, but the stated condition is not satisfied.
Step four: give a limited conclusion. On this simplified wording and these facts, the identified routes do not establish a right to recover the design-correction costs. A real dispute would require the full lease, evidence about the work and any applicable statutory provisions.
Now change one fact: the defect was listed in Schedule A. The contractual analysis changes, although that does not automatically resolve every question about the amount or process of recovery.
What evidence would you want in a problem question?
Build a list tied to the disputed wording:
- The full definition of recoverable costs, including exceptions and schedules.
- The nature and cause of the building problem.
- What each part of the proposed work actually achieves.
- Any dates or notices relevant to the charging condition.
- Whether the claimed costs relate to several different categories of work.
Avoid treating a contractor’s invoice heading as a legal conclusion. “External repairs” tells you less than a specification explaining what will be removed, replaced or redesigned.
Where costs are mixed, identify the need for evidence rather than inventing an allocation. The facts may support different treatment for different parts of a project.
Is the lease the only thing to check?
No. For residential service charges, contractual recoverability and statutory restrictions are separate parts of the analysis. For example, section 19 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 addresses reasonable costs and standards, while section 20 concerns consultation requirements and related limits, subject to the statutory scheme.
Do not treat those checks as substitutes for reading the lease. Nor should a short case summary be used to decide a current building-safety or service-charge dispute without checking the additional rules relevant to it.
How to use the case in an exam
Use Great Arthur House to support careful analysis of the actual charging provision and overlapping work. State the point it supports, compare the new clause and identify any material difference. Our problem-question guide explains how to connect authority to facts.
Law Answered+ gives you access to all our revision guides and casebooks covering the full syllabus, with MCQ Master included. You can work through property law and the rest of your revision using one membership, with explanations, key cases and question practice together. Read the relevant explanation, then practise identifying exactly which wording or fact controls the outcome.