Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

England and Wales: RTB leases—structural defect remediation not recoverable via safety or catch‑all service charge clauses (Tower Hamlets LBC v Leaseholders, CA 2025)

Published on: 25 February 2026

Published by a LexisNexis Local Government expert

Legal News

Article summary

The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Various Leaseholders of Brewster House and Malting House [2025] EWCA Civ 1591

What are the practical implications of this case?

This important ruling on service charges and lease construction for housing, real estate and local authority practitioners in the context of building safety remediation confirms a clear approach: broad “sweeper” management or safety clauses and wide, catch‑all expenditure wording will not readily be read as passing the cost of remedying inherent, pre‑existing structural faults to leaseholders. The courts will scrutinise context, the way clause lists are structured, and the commercial ramifications, and will require unequivocal wording before concluding that leaseholders accepted a potentially ruinous exposure for structural defect remediation. For Right to Buy leases in particular, the statutory scheme forms part of the relevant background because Parliament has expressly governed structural defects and strictly limits when a tenant can be charged. Practitioners should anticipate judicial resistance to attempts to secure the same result indirectly via expansive drafting. Landlords and local authorities should therefore:

Review RTB lease precedents and past variations;
Avoid presuming that safety wording captures remediation of structural defects;
Consider alternative funding routes.

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