Who pays the legal fees

[paulamis]

I track what my useless MA gets up to, at another property he tried taking a LH to court.

He lost completely and utterly, not only not getting what he was asking for, but facing having to return money he had already won at LVT, add to this the multiple thousands in sol fees he is not getting and the judge even awarded LH expenses.

The property is a block with an RTM in place, the RTM has one director and the company docs say all subscribers, just the director, are limited to a liability of £1.

So assuming several thousands have to be paid to the solictors and barristers who has to pay (All the other money is not a problem, it is management fees and managers expenses, all a lot less than the legal fees)?

FH - who has given up control
Director of the RTM - who has limited liability
Managing agent - who caused the mess
LHs - who had no idea this was going on.

Make my day and tell me the MA is going to have to pay

Paul

[JK0]

The freeholder's managing agent had to pay for my FTT case.

[paulamis]

@JK0

I suppose if it were just a few hundred the MA might have paid it out of embarrassment, I have only seen one flavour of MA contract, but that seemed to commit the FH to indemnifying the MA against costs.

I have heard that is not all LHs are included on the s.20c the other LHs can get stuck with the fees.

In this case they went to town on solicitors and barristers, there is a bill for many thousands looking for a victim.

[andydd]

Good question, something Ive been thinking about in case I'm helping with, the FH company (owned a share of by LHs), has run up huge legal costs which he thinks he can get back from the LH using S146 clause, this looks unlikely to me, especially for the full amount, so it seems that this normally formed FH company may end up with a huge debt and I cant see how it can be paid ?

Doesnt seem any mechansm to recover it from LHs

Are the shareholders/directors liable ?

[paulamis]

andydd,

Maybe it depends on the managers contract, if dealing with a limited company they may have sought to get the directors to personally guarantee costs/fees, otherwise, it is just a limited company, it could just fold. I suppose in that case the management would revert to the freeholder.

Maybe it is a 2 track answer, in a court, with real judiciary, the manager would be left trying to recover the money from the ltd company who instructed him. In the FTT anything goes.

P