What's The Use Of A Property Guardian?

• Published date: 26 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Real Estate and Construction, Construction & Planning, Real Estate
• Law Firm: Gatehouse Chambers
• Author: Mr John Clargo

"What's the use of a property guardian?" While that might be a potentially facetious question in the mouth of a person who has no experience of property guardians, it was also the question which was decided recently in the interesting Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) decision of Martin Rodger QC, Deputy Chamber President, in Global 100 Limited v Carlos Jimenez & Ors [2022] UKUT 50 (LC). In that case, however, the question was not facetious but, rather, a serious legal one which determined the outcome of the dispute.

For those who have not come across the concept before, the Court of Appeal described a property guardian in London Borough of Southwark v. Ludgate House Ltd [2020] EWCA Civ 1637 as "a private individual who...occupies vacant premises under a temporary contractual licence until the owner requires it for redevelopment. The agreement provides the guardian with accommodation at a lower cost than in the conventional residential letting market ... and it provides the building owner with some protection against squatters ...". The issue in that case was whether the guardians were in rateable occupation for the purposes of liability for national non-domestic rates (and the Court of Appeal decided they were not).

G100L had been to the Court of Appeal before on an issue relating to the agreements between G100L and their guardians. In Global 100 Limited v. Laleva [2021] EWCA Civ 1835 it was held that the nature of the agreements 'was the provision of the guardian services' and that the guardians were akin to service occupiers in that 'it was necessary for the provision of the guardian services that Ms Laleva should occupy the property'. The terms of the agreements in that case and the instant one were the same: in particular clause 4 headed 'Use of the Property' requiring the guardians to sleep at the accommodation not less than 5 days a week, to ensure that a guardian was present for at least 1 hour in 24, to share the occupation with others, to advise G100L immediately they were aware of any risk of damage to the accommodation or of any person attempting to gain access to it without G100L's permission.

Back to the particular facts of the instant case. The former Addison Lee building is a five-storey office block in London's Euston. Mr Jimenez and two others ('the Guardians') had lived on its third floor from June to December 2020 and had paid some '6,000-odd in rent. The First-tier tribunal found that the building was a house in multiple occupation...