Angelo Perotti v Amboh Properties Limited [2025] UKUT 421 (LC)

[2025] UKUT 421 (LC)

LC-2025-204

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL (LANDS CHAMBER)

AN APPEAL AGAINST A DECISION OF THE FIRST-TIER TRIBUNAL (PROPERTY CHAMBER)

Ref: LON/00AG/MNR/2024/0291

Venue Royal Courts of Justice, Strand,

Between

ANGELO PEROTTIAppellant

AMBOH PROPERTIES LIMITEDRespondent

London WC2A 2LL

16 December 2025

TRIBUNALS, COURTS AND ENFORCEMENT ACT 2007

LANDLORD AND TENANT – RENT DETERMINATION –assured tenancy – rent payable by quarterly instalments – whether a notice of increase proposing a new rent payable monthly was valid – effect of notice – s.13, Housing Act 1988 – appeal dismissed

13 Cleveland Court,

London WI

Martin Rodger KC,

Deputy Chamber President

16 December 2025

for Mr Perotti did not attend the hearing and was not represented

Amboh Properties Ltd did not respond to the appeal

The following cases are referred to in this decision:

Mannai Investment Company Limited v Eagle Star Assurance[1997] UKHL

Mooney v Whiteland[2023] EWCA Civ 67

Introduction

[1]This appeal from a corrected decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (the FTT) dated 3 June 2025 (published in its original form on 20 May 2025) raises a short question about the validity of a landlord’s notice under section 13, Housing Act 1988 proposing an increase in the rent payable under an assured tenancy. That question is whether a notice which expresses the proposed new rent as a monthly figure is valid where rent is payable quarterly under the assured tenancy.

[2]The appeal concerns the rent payable for a flat at 13Cleveland Court, London W1. Notice to increase the rent was given by the landlord, Amboh Properties Ltd, to the tenant, Mr Angelo Perotti, on 15 May 2024. The notice proposed a new rent of £1,1750 per month commencing on 29 September 2024.

[3]Mr Perotti’s tenancy of the flat is an assured tenancy under Part 1 of the Housing Act 1988 (the 1988 Act) which he acquired by statutory succession on the death of his mother, Mrs Ida Perotti, in 2014. At her death Mrs Perotti’s tenancy was a regulated tenancy under the Rent Act 1977, which she had acquired by succession under the Rent Act 1968 on the death of her husband, Mr Antonio Perotti, in 1975.

[4]Mr Perotti Senior’s tenancy was granted to him on 8 October 1956 for a term of one year commencing on 29 September 1956. It reserved a rent of £68 13 shillings and 5 pence expressed to be payable by equal quarterly payments in advance on the usual quarter days. Mr Perotti has continued to pay rent on a quarterly basis since he acquired his assured tenancy in 2014.

The legislative provisions

[5]Section 13 of the Housing Act 1988 provides as follows:

"13 Increases of rent under assured periodic tenancies (a) a statutory periodic tenancy other than one which, by virtue of paragraph 11 or paragraph 12 in Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act, cannot for the time being be an assured tenancy; and (b) any other periodic tenancy which is an assured tenancy, other than one in relation to which there is a provision, for the time being binding on the tenant, under which the rent for a particular period of the tenancy will or may be greater than the rent for an earlier period. (a) the minimum period after the date of the service of the notice; and (b) except in the case of a statutory periodic tenancy, the first anniversary of the date on which the first period of the tenancy began; and (c) if the rent under the tenancy has previously been increased by virtue of a notice under this subsection or a determination under section 14 below, the first anniversary of the date on which the increased rent took effect. (a) in the case of a yearly tenancy, six months; (b) in the case of a tenancy where the period is less than a month, one month; and (c) in any other case, a period equal to the period of the tenancy. (a) the tenant by an application in the prescribed form refers the notice to a rent assessment committee; or (b) the landlord and the tenant agree on a variation of the rent which is different from that proposed in the notice or agree that the rent should not be varied. (5) Nothing in this section (or in section 14 below) affects the right of the landlord and the tenant under an assured tenancy to vary by agreement any term of the tenancy (including a term relating to rent)."

[14]Subsection (2) provides that a notice proposing an increase in rent must be in the prescribed form. In the case of a property in England, the appropriate form is prescribed by the Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) (England) Regulations 2015 (the 2015 Regulations) and is form 4 in the Schedule or (by regulation 2) a form "substantially to the same effect" as form 4.

[15]The material parts of form 4 are paragraphs 2 and 4, which appear in the Schedule to the 2015 Regulations as follows: “2. The landlord is proposing a new rent of £……….. per [week] [month] [year]*, in place of the existing one of £……….. per [week] [month] [year]* *Delete as appropriate

[4]The starting date for the new rent will be …………………………….. (see notes 14 to 18 over the page)” *Delete as appropriate

[16]I note, in passing, that the options provided in paragraph 2 do not include a proposal for a new rent payable quarterly. Nor is the paragraph drafted in such a way as to require that the proposed new rent be for the same period as the current rent (it does not say, for example, “the landlord is proposing a new [weekly] [monthly] [yearly] rent of £… in place of the existing one of £…”).

[17]As the Court of Appeal explained in Mooney v Whiteland

[2023] EWCA Civ 67

, at [16]-[19], a notice of increase served pursuant to section 13(2), 1988 Act must comply with three requirements. The first requirement is that it must specify a minimum period after service of the notice before the proposed new rent can take effect. The minimum periods are identified in subsection (3). If the rent has been payable quarterly the case falls within sub-section (3)(c) and the minimum period is equal to the period of the tenancy and is therefore one quarter. Second, subsection (2)(c) has the effect that the rent may not be increased more than once a year. In this case there had been no increase in the rent since the commencement of Mr Perotti’s assured tenancy in 2014.

[18]Finally, the notice must "take effect at the beginning of a new period of the tenancy specified in the notice". If the rent is payable monthly on the first day of the month, the notice must propose a rent to begin on the first of the month, or if it is payable quarterly the notice must specify a date for the commencement of the new rent which is a quarter day.

[19]In Mooney v Whiteland, Males LJ explained the significance of the date identified in the notice as the starting date for the new rent, at [19]:

“The date from which the new rent will take effect is therefore of critical importance to the validity of a section 13 notice. The date specified will enable the tenant to understand whether these statutory requirements have been complied with and, if so, will leave no room for doubt about the date from which the new rent will be payable. But it also serves another important purpose, which is to specify the deadline for the tenant to challenge the proposed new rent by a referral to the rent assessment committee. This deadline is "the beginning of the new period specified in the notice" (subsection (4)). If a valid notice has been served and the tenant fails to refer the matter before this deadline, the new rent proposed in the landlord's notice takes effect without further ado.”

It is also relevant to mention section 39 of the 1988 Act, which is concerned with statutory succession. The operative provisions governing the entitlement of a close relative of a deceased tenant to a succession tenancy, where the deceased tenant was a regulated tenant and was themselves a successor, are in Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Rent Act 1977, as amended by Part 1 of Schedule 4 to the 1988 Act (section 38(2)). By those provisions the tenancy to which the second successor is entitled is an assured tenancy and, by section 39(5), 1988 Act it is a periodic tenancy arising by virtue of that section. By section 39(6)(d), 1988 Act, “the periods of the tenancy are the same as those for which rent was last payable by the predecessor under his tenancy”. The periods of Mr Perotti’s tenancy, like those of his mother and father, were therefore quarterly periods.

The proceedings in the FTT

[20]The notice served by the landlord on 15 May 2024 was in form 4 in the Schedule to the 2015 Regulation. Paragraphs 2 and 4 were completed as follows: “2. The landlord is proposing a new rent of £1750 per month, in place of the existing one of £1,124.50 per quarter on the commercial quarter dates (i.e. 25 March, 24 June, 29 September and 25 December)

[4]The starting date for the new rent will be 29 September 2024. (see notes 14 to 18 over the page)” The notes to which attention was drawn at the end of paragraph 4 are in the prescribed form and explain the three requirements of section 13(2) concerning the date of commencement of the new rent.

[21]The notice was served under cover of a letter from the landlord’s solicitor which made the landlord’s intention clear by stating that “the landlord’s proposed new rent of £1,750 per month will commence on 29 September 2024”.

[22]When he received the landlord’s notice, Mr Perotti referred it to the FTT under section 13(4), 1988 Act. In a decision of 4 November 2024 (the First Decision) the FTT decided that the notice was invalid because it expressed the proposed rent as a monthly rather than a quarterly sum and that it had no jurisdiction to determine a new rent. In case it was wrong about that the FTT also determined that if the notice had been valid the new rent would have been £4,125 per quarter, commencing on 4 November 2024.

[23]The landlord took issue with the FTT’s conclusion about the validity of the notice, because that had not been a point mentioned by Mr Perotti in his application or at the hearing, and the landlord had not had a proper opportunity to address the FTT on it. By a decision dated 20 January 2025 (the Second Decision) the FTT set aside the whole of the First Decision under rule 51 of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber Rules 2013, on the grounds that it was tainted by this procedural irregularity.

[24]By a third decision issued on 1 April 2025 (the Third Decision) the FTT decided that the notice was valid and that it did have jurisdiction to determine a new rent. Rather than simply giving effect to its alternative conclusion that a rent of £4,125 per quarter was appropriate, the FTT gave both parties the opportunity to submit further evidence. The landlord submitted additional evidence of recent asking rents in the area and on the basis of that evidence the FTT made its decision of 20 May 2025 (corrected on 3 June 2025) (the Fourth Decision) that the new rent should be £1,150 per month and should take effect on 20 May 2025. A rent of £1,150 a month is equal to £3,450 a quarter.

The appeal

[25]Mr Perotti sought permission to appeal, which I granted. As I said in my order of 18 August, Mr Perotti’s grounds of appeal were diffuse and not readily comprehensible but the essence of his complaint is that the FTT failed to give adequate reasons to explain why it considered that it had jurisdiction to determine a new rent. Underlying that criticism is Mr Perotti’s assertion that the FTT was right in its First Decision and that it should not have made any determination of a new rent. Mr Perotti has permission to appeal on that ground, but I refused him permission to appeal on the other grounds he wished to raise.

[26]The landlord chose not to respond to the appeal. Instead, its solicitors invited the Tribunal to set aside each of the FTT’s decisions or to strike the appeal out on the grounds that on 4 December 2024, after the First Decision and while it was understood that the original notice was of no effect, they had served a new notice of increase (without prejudice to the validity of the original notice) purporting to increase the rent to the figure of £4,125 indicated by the FTT with effect from 25 March 2025. In a letter to the Tribunal dated 19 September 2025 the landlord’s solicitors purported unilaterally to withdraw the original notice of increase of 15 May 2024. They submitted that no purpose would be served by the appeal.

[27]I refused the landlord’s application and gave them further time to file a respondent’s notice, if they wished to do so. As I explained in my refusal decision, the second notice of increase would appear to have been served earlier than the date specified in section 13(2)(c) of the 1988 Act and would have been of no effect, notwithstanding the omission of Mr Perotti to refer it to the FTT. That conclusion depends on the validity of the original notice, which is the issue in the appeal. If the notice was valid, as the landlord eventually persuaded the FTT, the earliest date from which a further increase may be proposed will be date was 20 May 2026, the first anniversary of the date the previous increase will have taken effect (section 13(2)(c), 1988 Act). On that basis the second notice will have been of no effect. On the other hand, if the original notice was invalid (as neither party now suggests) the second notice would have taken effect on 25 March 2025. Additionally, the reference to the FTT under section 13(4) is the act of the tenant, and there is no provision in the 1988 Act allowing the landlord unilaterally to withdraw a notice of increase which is already the subject of proceedings. Had the landlord wished to present argument about any of those matters it could have done in this appeal, but it has chosen not to and the appeal has proceeded unopposed.

Was the notice valid?

[28]The FTT’s original reason for concluding that the notice served on 15 May 2024 was incapable of giving it jurisdiction to determine a new rent is contained in the following paragraphs of the First Decision: “22. The Tribunal finds that the Notice of Increase of Rent refers to an increase from £1124.50 per quarter to £ 1750.00 per month. The assured tenancy which takes on the terms of the 1956 lease provides that the rent is paid quarterly in the usual quarter days. Whilst the commencement date of the new rent is 29 September 2024 is a one of the usual quarter days, the period of the rent is stated as monthly not quarterly.

[23]The Tribunal therefore finds the rent stated in the Notice does not accord with the duration of the rental period, that is a quarter, and so the notice is probably invalid, and the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to determine a rent under section 13, section 14 of the Housing Act 1988.”

[29]The reference in paragraph 23 to the notice “probably” being invalid was not an expression of uncertainty on the part of the FTT. It reflected the Court of Appeal’s conclusion in Mooney that the FTT does not have jurisdiction to determine the validity of a section 13 notice “so as to bind the parties” (Mooney, [45]-[46]). That does not mean that the FTT cannot form a view whether a notice is valid or not, as it must do in order to be satisfied that it has jurisdiction; it means only that the FTT’s view does not bind the parties, and does not prevent a party who takes a different view from seeking a binding determination on the validity of the notice from the County Court.

[30]The FTT’s subsequent reason for concluding that the notice was valid are contained in its Third Decision. Having recorded submissions on behalf of the landlord first, that a challenge to the validity of the notice was a question for the County Court and not for the FTT (as the Court of Appeal had decided in Mooney), and secondly, that there was nothing in the legislation to prevent a landlord from proposing a new rent under section 13 which would be payable for a period different from the rental period stated in the tenancy, the FTT went on: “25. The first ground, the tribunal agrees it does not have jurisdiction to determine whether a Notice is actually invalid, it may however for the purposes of considering jurisdiction, it may consider that a Notice of Increase is probably invalid.

[26]In respect of the second ground. The tribunal has reference to Mannai Investment Company Limited v Eagle Star Assurance [1997] UKHL where it was determined that if a reasonable person on reasonable reading of the Notice could have understood what was intended by it, then it should be considered valid. The tribunal considers that in this situation, the tenant ought to have known what was intended and so the Notice was probably valid.

[27]Third, on a reasonable reading of the Notice under Mannai above, the intention is known.”

[31]Mr Perotti made no submissions about this aspect of the appeal, but as it is the critical issue. The First Decision

[32]The key part of the First Decision is in paragraph 23 where the FTT said that:

“the rent stated in the Notice does not accord with the duration of the rental period, that is a quarter, and so the notice is probably invalid”

. Having formed that view the FTT either had to decline jurisdiction or adjourn to enable the parties to obtain a determination from the County Court on the validity of the notice, which would have been cumbersome and inconvenient. It took the former course.

[33]I have come to the conclusion that the FTT’s initial view was wrong and that the notice was valid, but I have reached that conclusion for different reasons from those given by the FTT in its Third Decision.

[34]Section 13(2)(a) requires that the landlord’s notice must propose a new rent to take effect at the beginning of a new period of the tenancy specified in the notice, which must be a period beginning not earlier than the minimum period after the date of the service of the notice. The minimum period in the case of a quarterly tenancy is a quarter. The starting date specified in the notice of 15 May 2024 was 29 September 2024. That date was a quarter day, falling more than one quarter after the date of service of the notice. It therefore gave Mr Perotti the required quarter’s notice of the proposed increase. The fact that the rent proposed was a monthly rent did not cause it to fall foul of the first of the requirements identified by the Court of Appeal in Mooney.

[35]Where the tenancy commenced more than a year before the date of the proposed increase, section (2)(c) prevents a landlord from proposing a new rent to take effect earlier than the first anniversary of the date on which the rent was last increased by virtue of a notice under section 13(2) or a determination by the FTT under section 14. In this case the rent had last been increased during the tenancy of Mr Perotti’s mother, when it was increased to a rate recorded in the rent register as £86.50 per week with effect from 20 January 2010. Accordingly, the notice of 15 May 2024 did not propose an increase earlier than was permitted by section 13(2)(c).

[36]Finally, the opening words of section 13(2) require that the notice must propose an increase to "take effect at the beginning of a new period of the tenancy specified in the notice". On the basis that Mr Perotti’s tenancy is a quarterly tenancy, the date on which the notice proposed the new rent should take effect, namely 29 September 2024, satisfied that requirement.

[37]The three requirements of section 13(2) identified by the Court of Appeal in Mooney are all about the date on which the proposed increase can take effect. The notice in this case satisfied each of those requirements. Itleft no room for doubt about the date from which the new rent would be payable. It enabled Mr Perotti to understand whether the statutory requirements have been complied with. And it specified the correct deadline for him to challenge the proposed new rent by referring it to the FTT.

[38]In my judgment the landlord’s later submission to the FTT that there is nothing in section 13 or 14 of the 1988 Act to prevent a landlord from proposing a change to the rental period, and to do so in a notice of increase, was correct. There is no express requirement that the new rental period specified in the notice must be the same as the rental period under the tenancy. Nor is there a prohibition on the landlord using a notice of increase to propose a change in the rental period and the prescribed form appears to allow it. As I have already noted, although the prescribed form requires adaptation to make it applicable to a quarterly rent, the way in which paragraph 2 is expressed allows it to be completed to propose, for example, “a new rent of £……….. per month, in place of the existing one of £……….. per week”.

[39]Section 13(5) explicitly confirms that nothing in sections 13 or 14 affects the right of the landlord and the tenant under an assured tenancy to vary by agreement any term of the tenancy (including a term relating to rent). The landlord cannot therefore be prevented by section 13 from proposing a change in the rental period, and it is difficult to see why that cannot be done in the notice itself. After all, the whole purpose of a notice under section 13 is to propose a change in the terms of the assured tenancy concerning the rent. There seems to me to be nothing in the statute to prevent a landlord from combining in a single notice a proposal to increase the rent and a proposal to change the rental period from quarterly to monthly, provided the proposal is clear.

[40]What effect would such a notice have? Mr Perotti referred the notice in this case to the FTT. Had he not done so, the new rent specified in the notice would have taken effect “as mentioned in the notice” (section 13(4)). I am inclined to think that the effect of the notice in those circumstances would have been to increase the amount of the rent, leaving the rental period unchanged with the rent remaining payable by equal quarterly instalments. A change in the rental period would require agreement from the tenant. If nothing else was said, agreement might be signified by the tenant paying only one month’s rent from the commencement date specified in the notice. But if the tenant did not do so, the fact that the notice had not been referred to the FTT would not be enough to enable agreement to be inferred so as to bring about a change in the rental period. The rent would continue to be payable quarterly and the quarterly sum would be three times the monthly sum specified in the notice.

[41]The fact that the rent is expressed in the notice as a monthly sum does not seem to me to be critical, or to prevent the notice having effect, as it remains perfectly possible to ascertain the quarterly sum by multiplying by three if the landlord’s proposal is not accepted. By section 2 of the Apportionment Act 1870, all rents are considered as accruing from day to day, whether the parties choose to describe it as a weekly, monthly or quarterly rent, and the way in which the new rent is described in the landlord’s notice, so long as it is clear, is not fundamental to the purpose or validity of the notice.

[42]I therefore consider that the FTT was wrong to treat the notice as invalid in its First Decision.

[43]That does not mean that it was wrong to set aside its First Decision. It had been no part of Mr Perotti’s case that the notice was invalid because of the proposed change in the rental period. That was a point which the FTT took on its own initiative. As it was a point which arose on the face of the documents and which concerned its own jurisdiction, the FTT was obliged to raise it, but it needed to do so in a way which was fair to both parties. It should not have decided the case on the basis of a point of which the parties had not been given proper notice and had not had time to consider. The FTT’s willingness to set the First Decision aside on the grounds of procedural irregularity appears to be an acknowledgement that the parties were not given a fair opportunity to consider whether the proposed change in the rental period created a jurisdictional problem.

[44]The FTT was therefore entitled to set its First Decision aside. It need not have done so as comprehensively as it did in its Second Decision and might simply have substituted the alternative determination it had already provided in its First Decision. But it decided to set aside the whole decision and to invite further valuation evidence namely the passage of time since its original determination the landlord has not challenged because of the passage of time since its original determination. The landlord has not challenged that approach, and the whole of the First Decision must therefore be regarded as having no effect. The Third Decision

[45]The only challenge by Mr Perotti to the FTT’s Third Decision for which he has permission, was expressed in his grounds of appeal as a challenge to its reasoning:

“that the FTT failed to give reasons why it held that that it had jurisdiction to allow the landlord’s application herein for rent increases when the FTT had previously refused to allow the landlord’s three previous applications.”

[46]I agree with Mr Perotti that the FTT failed to explain why it considered the notice was valid. But I do not think that has anything to do with what had happened on previous occasions when notices of increase had been served. Before coming to those previous occasions, on which Mr Perotti did have something to say, I will explain what I see as the difficulty with the Third Decision.

[47]The FTT did not address the landlord’s submission that the notice satisfied all the requirements of section 13(2) and was not invalidated by any provision of the 1988 Act. Instead, the FTT relied on the well-known decision of the House of Lords in Mannai Investment Company Limited v Eagle Star Assurance [1997] UKHL. In that case the House of Lords considered whether a notice given by a party to a lease has been effective although it did not on its face comply with the requirements of the lease. It decided that the test to be applied was to ask whether, despite the errors in the notice, it would nevertheless have been understood by a reasonable recipient of the notice with knowledge of the background circumstances. If it would, the notice should be regarded as effective.

[48]Mannai was a case about ambiguities and errors in contractual notices, but in Mooney the Court of Appeal reiterated that the same approach can be applied to statutory notices, including notices under section 13(2), 1988 Act. The FTT considered that the notice in this case was a valid notice on the basis of the approach in Mannai. It said that “the tenant ought to have known what was intended and so the Notice was probably valid.” But it did not say what it meant by that. Did it mean that the notice should have been understood by the tenant as proposing a rent of £1750 per quarter instead of £1750 per month, or as meaning £5,250 per quarter? Or did it consider (as I have concluded) that it did not matter if the rent was expressed as a monthly sum so long as the proposed date of commencement complied with the requirements of section 13(2)? Nor did the FTT explain why the problem which it had originally considered to be fatal to the validity of the notice (that it proposed a monthly instead of a quarterly rental period) was no longer a difficulty.

[49]I do not think it is necessary to rely on Mannai to arrive at the conclusion that the landlord’s notice was valid. I have reached the same conclusion as the FTT but for the different reasons I have already explained.

[50]Mr Perotti maintained that the FTT had not only failed to explain why it found the notice valid but that it was wrong to do so. He relied on three earlier attempts made by the landlord to increase the rent.

[51]The first attempt on which Mr Perotti relied was in 2013 during the regulated tenancy of his mother. On 18 November 2013 the landlord applied to the rent officer to register a new rent but on 10 January 2014 the rent officer wrote to the parties informing them that he could not register a new rent and would take no further action because details of the landlord’s expenditure incurred in providing services had not been provided.

[52]Mr Perotti did not explain why the refusal of a rent increase in 2014 should be relevant to the landlord’s entitlement to an increase under a different tenancy in 2025. I can think of no reason why that should be the case.

[53]The second attempt to increase the rent relied on by Mr Perotti began in 2020. The landlord served a notice of increase on 8 December 2020 which Mr Perotti referred to the FTT. In a decision dated 23 September 2021 the FTT found that the notice had not been properly served and was invalid. The landlord did not resist that conclusion and instead served a further notice as soon as the FTT expressed doubt about the validity of the first.

[54]Once again, Mr Perotti did not explain why a failure properly to serve one notice in 2020 should be relevant to an entirely different notice served some years later, receipt of which was acknowledged by Mr Perotti. I can think of no reason why it should.

[55]Mr Perotti relied on three occasions when the landlord attempted unsuccessfully to increase the rent, but I have not been able to identify the third. It may have been the notice served in 2021 in response to the FTT’s suggestion that the previous notice was invalid, or it may have been a notice served on some earlier or later occasion. The point remains, that each notice given by the landlord must be considered on its own merits. There is no reason why the existence of some defect in a particular notice should prevent the landlord from relying on a different notice.

Other points raised by Mr Perotti

[56]Mr Perotti raised a large number of additional points in a skeleton argument which he provided before the hearing listed on 16 December. In the event Mr Perotti was unable to attend the hearing and I have determined the appeal without convening a further hearing. Where a party fails to attend a hearing rule 49 of the Tribunal’s Rules (the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) (Lands Chamber) Rules 2010) allows the Tribunal to proceed with the hearing where it is satisfied that the party had been notified of the hearing and considers that it is in the interests of justice to proceed with the hearing. Where there is only one party, as in this appeal, the power to proceed with the hearing in the party’s absence must include power to determine the matter without a hearing at all. The Tribunal has power under rule 46 to make any decision without a hearing, provided it has regard to the views of the parties when deciding whether a hearing is required.

[57]Mr Perotti was given proper notice of the hearing, by notice dated 12 November 2025 informing him that the hearing would take place at the Royal Courts of Justice. Mr Perotti attended instead at the Tribunal’s administrative offices, which are elsewhere. He was then taken ill while making his way to the Royal Courts of Justice accompanied by a member of the Tribunal’s staff and he decided to go home. He had recovered sufficiently to send an email a few hours later asking for the hearing to be rescheduled.

[58]In these circumstances I would normally be sympathetic to Mr Perotti’s request to list the appeal for a further hearing, but no purpose would be served by taking that course if, after considering his written argument, I have formed a clear view of the merits of the appeal and I am satisfied that there is no possibility of a different outcome. I am satisfied that that is the case with this appeal. The only ground of appeal for which I granted permission was that it was arguable that the FTT had not adequately dealt with the issue of its own jurisdiction nor with the basis on which it was entitled to revisit its original alternative conclusion that the rent should be £4,125 per quarter. Permission was refused on all other grounds raised by Mr Perotti in his application for permission to appeal, though it is clear from his recent skeleton argument that he wishes to resurrect these and place them at the forefront of his oral argument.

[59]I have agreed with Mr Perotti that the FTT’s reasoning was inadequate, though not for the reasons he advances. I have rejected his reliance on the outcome of previous notices served by the landlord and am satisfied that there is no basis on which they could create a bar to any further rent increase, as Mr Perotti maintains. No purpose would be served by convening a further hearing simply to enable Mr Perotti to present arguments which have no prospect of success or which relate to allegations for which he does not have permission to appeal. I am also satisfied that the FTT was entitled to set aside the whole of the First Decision and re-open the issue of valuation for the reason it gave. It had no doubt assumed that additional evidence might result in a rent being determined at a higher figure than in its First Decision, but when additional evidence supported a lower figure it was entitled to make its second determination.

[60]I have regard to the particular context of Mr Perotti’s relationship with his landlord. I have been shown a copy of the notice of increase served by the landlord’s solicitors on 4 December 2024, without prejudice to its argument that the original notice was valid. I am told that Mr Perotti did not refer that notice to the FTT. If, as Mr Perotti argues, the original notice was invalid, it appears likely (subject to any point Mr Perotti might take) that the effect of the second notice would have been to increase the rent payable to £4,125 per quarter with effect from 25 March 2025. That would be a distinctly poorer outcome for Mr Perotti than if, as I have found, the first notice was valid.

[61]I also take into account the Tribunal’s overriding objective of dealing with cases fairly and justly. That includes dealing with them in ways which are proportionate and avoiding delay. It would be disproportionate and would involve further unnecessary delay, as well as inconvenience to other parties waiting to have their cases heard, for this appeal to be allocated more of the Tribunal’s resources.

[62]For these reasons I am satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to proceed to determine the appeal without a hearing, despite Mr Perotti’s efforts to attend having been unsuccessful, and despite his request for the opportunity to present oral argument.

Disposal

[63]For these reasons I dismiss Mr Perotti’s appeal.

[64]The consequence of this determination is that the FTT’s Fourth Decision (as corrected on 3 June to remove a typographical error) was an effective determination of the new rent for Mr Perotti’s home. That new rent is stated in the corrected Fourth Decision to be £1,150 per month. But the FTT has no power to change the rental periods agreed by the original parties in 1956, which were, and remain, quarterly; only the parties can vary the rental periods, and only by agreement. The rent which the FTT determined is therefore payable by quarterly, not monthly, instalments. Expressed as a quarterly sum, the rent is £3,450 per quarter. There has been no appeal by the landlord against the FTT’s decision that the new rent should commence on 20 May 2025 (which means that the first instalment at the new rate fell due on 24 June 2025). The earliest date from which a further increase could be obtained will be 24 June 2026, provided at least one quarter’s notice is given. Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, 16 December 2025 Right of appeal