Section 20 major works and consultation before a big bill

Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 limits what a landlord can recover from leaseholders for major works unless they have been consulted first. It is why a roof replacement reaches you as a sequence of notices rather than as an invoice. This is general information about the statutory process rather than advice on a particular lease.

The two thresholds

Consultation is required for qualifying works where any one tenant's contribution would be more than £250. For a qualifying long term agreement, meaning an agreement running for more than 12 months, the threshold is a contribution of more than £100 in any accounting period.

Both figures are per leaseholder rather than per building, and both include VAT, according to the Leasehold Advisory Service. Where the service charge is not split equally, the test is applied to the flat paying the largest share, so one large flat can trigger consultation for the whole block.

These are the figures in the regulations for England and for Wales, under the 2003 and 2004 consultation regulations respectively. The government consulted in 2025 on reforming the major works regime and raising them, and when it published its response in July 2026 it said it would respond separately on that part in due course. For now these remain the figures in the regulations.

The three stages

The stages below are those in the English regulations for works that do not need a public notice. Works under a long term agreement follow different requirements, and the Welsh regulations have their own schedules.

Stage one is the notice of intention. It describes the proposed works in general terms, or says where a description can be inspected, states the landlord’s reasons for considering them necessary, invites written observations within 30 days and invites leaseholders to nominate a contractor from whom the landlord should try to obtain an estimate.

Stage two is the statement of estimates. The landlord must obtain estimates, at least one of them from a person wholly unconnected with the landlord, supply a statement giving the estimated cost from at least two of them along with a summary of the observations received and the landlord’s response, and make all the estimates available for inspection. A further notice then invites observations on the estimates within another 30 days.

Stage three is the notice of reasons, given within 21 days of entering into the contract, which explains why that contractor was chosen. It is not required where the contractor was a nominated contractor or submitted the lowest estimate.

What happens if the landlord does not consult

The sanction is why the process is taken seriously. Where the requirements are neither complied with nor dispensed with, the landlord cannot recover more than £250 from each leaseholder for the qualifying works.

Take a block of 20 flats with equal shares and a £180,000 roof. The figures are illustrative. Properly consulted, each leaseholder contributes £9,000. Without valid consultation and without dispensation, the landlord can recover £250 from each, a total of £5,000, and cannot recover the remaining £175,000 from the leaseholders through the service charge.

Dispensation

A landlord who gets the process wrong can apply to the tribunal for dispensation. Section 20ZA of the Act says the tribunal may dispense with all or any of the consultation requirements if satisfied that it is reasonable to do so.

The Supreme Court set out how this works in a 2013 case, Daejan Investments v Benson. The tribunal should mainly ask whether the leaseholders were actually harmed by the landlord’s mistake. The Court also said a serious breach is not, on its own, a reason to refuse dispensation. A tribunal can attach conditions when it grants dispensation, including conditions about costs. In that case, the landlord had to reduce the amount it could charge and pay the leaseholders’ reasonable costs. So a slip in the process does not automatically wipe out a bill, but it can leave the landlord out of pocket.

A pending notice during a sale

Our guide to selling a leasehold flat explains that the leasehold management pack includes planned major works and section 20 notices, and that a large upcoming bill can cause a mortgage offer to be postponed. A buyer’s solicitor will usually ask what the works are and what the seller’s share will be.

How a pending notice affects the price, or who pays the bill, is a matter for negotiation between the parties, so ask your conveyancer what is realistic at the stage the consultation has reached.