Consultation Paper on the General Law of the Landlord and Tenant

others of which relate to practical failures and bad management. 4 TheCommission has recently pointed out that some of these problemshave been solved in other jurisdictions by special legislation, such asthe strata titles legislation in Australia and New Zealand andcondominiums laws of North America. 5 It was indicated that thissubject would be considered by the Commission at a later stage. 6 Infact that consideration is now under way as a separate project and itwould be inappropriate for this <strong>Consultation</strong> <strong>Paper</strong> to anticipate theoutcome. One obvious reason for this is that the other project willhave under consideration various matters which lie outside the scopeof landlord and tenant law.9.03 It may, however, be appropriate to raise a few matterswhich do concern service charges provided for under lettingarrangements in multi-let developments. One particular concernwhich has been put to the Commission is that service chargeprovisions tend to be very complex and their implications are oftennot fully understood by tenants, especially in residentialdevelopments. 7 At the very least this is a recipe for dispute asbetween the tenants themselves and as between the tenants and thelandlord or management company. There is also the danger that littleunderstood provisions will be drafted very much in favour of thelandlord or will be operated in an unfair manner.9.04 The Commission considers that there is substance to suchconcerns and that there may be scope for some legislative provisionsto deal with them. The sort of issues which such legislation mightdeal with would be: 8 (1) introducing the concept of “reasonableness”45678Eg a failure to set up the management scheme effectively or allowing themanagement company to be struck off the register of companies.Report on Land Law and Conveyancing Law: (7) Positive Covenants overFreehold Land and other Proposals (LRC 70–2003) paragraph 1.10.Ibid paragraph 1.14.An example of such legislation will be found in the English Landlord andTenant Act 1985, sections 18-30, as amended by sections 41-42 andSchedule 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and sections 150-9 andSchedules 9 and 10 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.It should be noted that the Residential Tenancies Bill 2003 does not dealdirectly with the subject of service charges, but the provisions for disputeresolution in Part 6 may be relevant in so far as a dispute over servicecharges may be regarded as a “disagreement” raising an issue with regard126