The High Court has found that a landlord cannot replace a communal heating and hot water system in a way that would increase the maintenance burden on tenants.
The case of Triplark Ltd v Whale and others [2024] EWHC 1440 (Ch), concerns a block of 194 flats known as Northwood Hall in London. Triplark is the landlord ("the Landlord") of the building. The defendants are 11 occupiers on long leases ("the Tenants").
The Landlord had covenanted in the tenancies to "maintain at all reasonable hours a reasonable and adequate supply of hot water…and to provide sufficient and adequate heat to the radiators.." So the Landlord operates the hot water and communal heating system of all flats within the building.
The Landlord wanted to renew the heating and hot water system serving the Tenants. In summary, the new system would change from a communal boiler to one where heat exchanger units (HIUs) and their accompanying pipe work would be installed in each flat. In 2019 the Landlord's predecessor had already installed this new communal system which was serving 180 other flats in the building.
The Landlord claimed that the HIUs would be "additions" and so would come within the demised central heating apparatus solely serving each flat and so would fall upon the tenants to repair. The Tenants opposed the installation of the HIUs on the grounds that they would increase the extent of their repairing obligations under their leases.
The Landlord sought declarations from the High Court to essentially confirm that they were entitled to replace the heating and hot water system in this way.
The Court declined to grant the declarations sought for the following reasons:
- Following Arnold v Britton [2015] UKSC 36, the Judge held that the repairing obligations should be interpreted in accordance with what was contemplated by the parties when the leases were entered into. The Judge was convinced by the Tenant's argument that installing HIUs would change the way the leases would operate, as the HIUs would be treated as being a part of the defendant's repairing obligation, which was not intended at the start of the leases.
- The Judge was not persuaded by the argument that there was nothing explicit in the leases which restricted the Landlord's right to renew the heating and hot water system in a manner which could impose a more onerous repairing obligation on the tenant. The Judge noted the converse argument that if the Landlord had intended to create a right to extend the Tenants repairing covenant it could have expressly done so in the leases.
- The Judge also provided a helpful reminder of the principles a court will consider when granting declaratory relief i.e. "the Court should take into account justice to the claimant, justice to the defendant, whether the declaration would serve a useful purpose and whether there are other special reasons to grant the declaration." In this case, the Court concluded that the declarations sought would only impose an additional burden on the Tenants and would not resolve the dispute and would therefore not serve a useful purpose.
As such, the Court did not grant the declarations sought by the Landlord, confirming that the new system could not be imposed on the Tenants as it imposed an additional repair obligation on them.
Landlords will need to carefully consider their options when carrying out replacement works especially if they could impact a tenant's repairing obligation.
