The Lands Tribunal has held that windows are part of a property’s structure under the Housing Act and it was therefore reasonable for a landlord to include the cost of repairing them in the tenant’s service charge.

The case involved Sheffield City Council and one of its tenants. Under the terms of the lease, the authority had covenanted to repair the exterior of the building and also to carry out improvements if it thought them to be desirable.

The reasonable costs of such work would be payable by the tenant through the service charge. The authority informed the tenant that it intended to replace the windows in her block of flats to improve the thermal comfort and lower heating costs. She was given an estimate of the cost of the work.

The tenant then challenged the reasonableness of the plan under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

The Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) held that the windows weren’t part of the exterior and therefore the authority had no obligation to repair or renew them. It also found that the reasonable cost of carrying out the work was less than the authority had suggested and should be reduced.

The authority appealed to the Lands Tribunal which held that under the Housing Act 1985, external windows were part of both the exterior and the structure of the building to which they belonged. The tribunal was wrong therefore to conclude that the reasonable cost of carrying out the work could not be recouped by the authority as part of the service charge. However, the tribunal had been right to say that the amount the authority wanted to charge was not reasonable and should be reduced.

The authority therefore won its appeal as far as its right to carry out the work was concerned but lost in relation to the reasonableness of the amount it wanted to charge the tenant. The LVT’s order reducing the figure was allowed to stand.