RM Residential Limited v Westacre Estates Limited & Anor
Decision date: 4 March 2024
Neutral citation: [2024] UKUT 56 (LC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: high
This appeal to the Upper Tribunal concerned the First-tier Tribunal's refusal to grant retrospective dispensation from the statutory tenant consultation requirement for major works carried out in 2021 by a purchaser of the freehold who had not completed registration at the Land Registry. The Upper Tribunal found multiple legal and factual errors in the FTT's reasoning—notably misapprehension of the registration gap and treating lack of urgency as fatal—and substituted a decision granting dispensation because the FTT had already found, unappealed, there was no tenant prejudice.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: high
The court held that during the registration gap a purchaser holds equitable title and, subject to existing lease rights, may enter, carry out necessary works and apply to the tribunal for dispensation from consultation; and that the statutory dispensation jurisdiction is discretionary and principally concerned with whether tenants suffered prejudice from lack of consultation, so urgency is not a statutory precondition to granting dispensation.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The tribunal indicated that it is unnecessary and potentially unfair to require cross-examination of an unanticipated witness where the respondent does not contest the evidence, and that a professional report prepared for the purchaser by a director's consulting company is not automatically tainted by a conflict of interest.