Repairs, Maintenance and Major Works Including Statutory Consultation
From reactive repair to planned maintenance
Good practice is risk-based and planned: condition surveys feed a maintenance plan; a planned preventative maintenance schedule sets frequencies; contractor performance is monitored against specification and KPIs. The lease, not statute, defines what is recoverable, so always check the repairing covenant, the common parts definition and any service or insurance obligations before commissioning work.
Section 20 in detail
Where a landlord proposes qualifying works that will cost any tenant more than £250, it must follow the consultation process: notice of intention with a 30-day window for written observations; obtaining at least two estimates, at least one from a person wholly unconnected with the landlord, where reasonably practicable; notification of the estimates with reasons for the chosen contractor and a further 30-day observation window; and notification of the award. Failure caps recovery at £250 per tenant unless the FTT grants dispensation under s.20ZA. Dispensation is discretionary and may be conditional.
Major works also engage the Defective Premises Act 1972 (s.4 duty of care on those with repairing obligations) and, for higher-risk buildings, the Building Safety Act 2022: registration with the Building Safety Regulator, an accountable person, a safety case and the golden thread of information.
Traps: phasing a scheme to duck the £250 threshold - the FTT may treat phases as one scheme; assuming "urgency" removes the consultation duty (it does not, though dispensation may follow); treating the lowest tender as automatically the best value; forgetting that connected persons include employees, agents and associated companies.
Rule of thumb: if the whole scheme will exceed £250 per leaseholder, run the full consultation and keep a dated audit trail of every notice, observation and response.