Southern Land Securities Ltd v Gisele Catherine Rettie & Anor

A tenant can be required to vacate during repairs only where vacating is essential to carry out the work. If it is not essential, the landlord cannot compel the tenant to leave merely because doing so would make the work quicker or cheaper; the landlord may instead agree to pay the tenant’s expenses.

Where a lease makes leaseholders responsible for costs incurred in performing the landlord’s repairing obligations, reasonable ancillary costs may include temporary accommodation and storage for occupants who agree to move. Such expenditure may be reasonably incurred even if relocation was not strictly necessary.

Southern Land Securities Ltd, the landlord of a block of eight flats, appealed a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) dated 21 July 2025. The FTT had determined, on an application under section 27A of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, that two leaseholders were not liable through their service charges for temporary accommodation, removal and storage costs incurred while damp-proofing work was carried out in two basement flats.

The FTT considered that the occupants had not been shown to need to vacate, that the costs fell outside the repairing obligation and that they had not been reasonably incurred. The central issues were whether the occupants were obliged to move, whether the lease covered the associated costs and whether the landlord had reasonably incurred them.

1. Appeal allowed. The Tribunal set aside the FTT’s decision and substituted a determination that the respondents were liable to contribute through their service charges to the accommodation and storage costs paid for the basement occupants. The FTT had not been asked to quantify that liability.

2. The Tribunal applied the principles in McGreal v Wake [1984] 13 H.L.R 107. A landlord’s right to enter and occupy premises to carry out repairs extends to excluding the tenant only where that is essential to the execution of the work. A tenant need not vacate simply because the work would take longer or cost more if carried out while the tenant remained. The lease’s express access covenant did not alter the limit on the cooperation required of the tenant. The Tribunal also referred to the general contractual principle stated in Mackay v Dick (1881) 6 App Cas 251: contractual cooperation is required only to the extent necessary to make the contract workable.

3. The Tribunal accepted the FTT’s conclusion that the work could have been carried out while the basement occupants remained. They were therefore not obliged to vacate at their own expense. The landlord could choose between working around the occupants and seeking their agreement to move by paying their expenses.

4. The absence of strict necessity did not make the relocation costs unreasonable. The work would have taken longer and presumably cost more with the occupants in place. The comparative cost of the two options was unknown, and cost was not the only relevant consideration. The Tribunal could not conclude that the landlord’s choice was unreasonable. Whether the landlord might have defended a damages claim if access had been refused was irrelevant to that assessment.

5. The removal, storage and temporary accommodation expenses were incidental or ancillary costs incurred in performing the landlord’s repairing obligations under clause 1(b)(i) of the lease. The landlord could also pass on discretionary expenditure under clause 1(b)(iv) where it reasonably deemed the expenditure necessary for the general benefit of the building and its tenants.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) — Allowed the landlord’s appeal, set aside the FTT’s decision and substituted a determination that the leaseholders were liable to contribute to the accommodation and storage costs.
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) — On 21 July 2025, determined that the leaseholders were not liable for those costs.