On 21 May 2014 Woodside Court RTM Company served a Claim Notice on the landlord, Meridian Retirement Housing Services. The landlord subsequently issued a Counter-Notice contesting the claim citing a number of grounds, including that the premises do not comply with the Act. It was at this point that the Right to Manage Company turned to the RTMF for assistance.
Soon after receiving the RTM Company’s instruction and on receipt of a copy of the papers it became clear that the Claim was flawed and had little chance of success. It was therefore agreed that we would allow the Claim Notice to be deemed withdrawn, whilst we served a formal request for information.
On receipt of the information it was established that the landlord’s primary ground of dispute was that the premises consisted of a number of buildings and not one self-contained building as the leaseholders believed.
In a letter dated 16 October 2014 Peverel Retirement advised that the premises consists of eleven self-contained blocks, however after communications back and forth it was soon agreed that the premises actually has just the five blocks, shown on the site layout plan as Block A1, A2, B1, B2 and B3.
Aware of the impending Court of Appeal hearing, and considering the resources available to the Appellants in the case between Triplerose Limited and Ninety Broomfield Road [2015] EWCA Civ 282, a decision had to be made on whether we should continue with one Right to Manage Company for the multiple blocks or form 5 separate RTM Companies, one for each block.
Expecting that any claim new for multiple blocks would be tied up in litigation until after the Court of Appeal Ninety Broomfield Road decision was known, it was agreed that four additional RTM companies would be formed and the original RTM company amended.
On 16 April 2015 we served three Claim Notices, one for each of the blocks known as A1, B2 and B3, with a further two Claim Notices on 5 May 2015 for blocks A2 and B1, five separate companies each with a Claim Notice in line with Ninety Broomfield Road decision.
We are pleased to say that FirstPort Retirement Property Services Limited has now issued three Counter-Notices admitting the Right to Manage blocks A1, B2 and B3. We now await FirstPort’s decision regarding the remaining two, three down two to go!