Section 48 Notice: Address for Service for RMCs and RTMs

A section 48 notice is a short written notice in which the landlord gives each leaseholder an address in England and Wales where the leaseholder can serve notices on the landlord. It sounds like admin. It is not: until the landlord has given that address, the leaseholder's rent, service charge and administration charges are treated as not due.

Most of what you will find about section 48 is written for buy-to-let landlords and their tenants. This guide is for the other case — a block of flats run by its own leaseholders, where the residents' management company (RMC) owns the freehold or a right to manage (RTM) company has taken over management. In both, the duty lands on a company that volunteers run.

What section 48 says

Section 48(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 provides:

"A landlord of premises to which this Part applies shall by notice furnish the tenant with an address in England and Wales at which notices (including notices in proceedings) may be served on him by the tenant."

Three things in that sentence matter in practice.

"By notice." The address has to be given in writing. The Act's general rule on notices, in section 54(1), is that a notice under the Act "shall be in writing" and "may be sent by post". The courts have not read this strictly. In Glen International Ltd v Triplerose Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 388, the Court of Appeal relied on this summary of the law from an earlier Court of Appeal case, Drew-Morgan v Hamid-Zadeh: "The notice required by Section 48(1) is not very onerous. The tenant must be told of an address in England and Wales at which he may serve notices on the Landlord: no more, no less." The notice does not have to say that the address is for serving notices, and where the landlord's name and address is stated in the lease without limitation or qualification, "there is no need for a separate notice". Oral notification is not enough.

"In England and Wales." A director's holiday address in Spain, or a parent company's office in Scotland, does not do the job. The address itself has to be in England or Wales.

"Including notices in proceedings." This is the address a leaseholder (or their solicitor) uses to start a claim or serve a tribunal application on the landlord. It has to be somewhere post is actually opened.

Part VI of the 1987 Act — the part section 48 sits in — applies, under section 46(1), to "premises which consist of or include a dwelling and are not held under a tenancy to which Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 applies". A residential block let on long leases is squarely inside it.

What happens if the notice is never given

Section 48(2) is the part that gives the rule its teeth:

"Where a landlord of any such premises fails to comply with subsection (1), any rent, service charge or administration charge otherwise due from the tenant to the landlord shall (subject to subsection (3)) be treated for all purposes as not being due from the tenant to the landlord at any time before the landlord does comply with that subsection."

Read the last words carefully: "at any time before the landlord does comply". The charge is suspended, not cancelled. Once a valid notice is given, the money becomes due. But until then, a leaseholder who has not paid is not in arrears — so there is nothing yet to chase, and none of the recovery steps a director would normally take can properly begin.

That is why section 48 tends to surface at the worst moment. A director chases a large arrears balance, the leaseholder takes advice, and the first question back is whether a section 48 notice was ever served. If nobody can show that the leaseholder was given an address in writing, the chase stops until one is.

There is one exception. Section 48(3) switches the rule off while a court or tribunal has appointed a receiver or manager whose functions include receiving the charges. That is rare in a volunteer-run block.

Section 48 is not the same as section 47

The two sections sit next to each other and are often cited together, but they are separate duties.

Section 47(1) requires that a written demand "must contain" the landlord's name and address. The two can overlap: the case law above accepts an address in England and Wales stated in the lease, and other written documents can sometimes do the same job. But whether a particular document was enough turns on its facts. In Glen International, a letter giving a "correspondence address" for one dispute was held not to be a section 48 notice. The lease can do the job if it states the landlord's current address in England and Wales, but an address in an old lease or a demand may be out of date or open to argument. A dedicated section 48 notice, given to each leaseholder and recorded, is the safe course because you can prove it. And serving a section 48 notice does not excuse a demand that leaves out the landlord's details.

Who is "the landlord" in your block?

This is where blocks run by their own leaseholders differ from a buy-to-let flat, and where the answer depends on how your block is structured.

If your RMC owns the freehold, the RMC is the landlord. The section 48 duty is the company's. That means the directors need to make sure every leaseholder has had a notice giving the company's address for service — and that the notice is in the company's name, not a director's. Our guide to freehold residents management companies covers how that structure works.

If you have taken over under right to manage, the freeholder is still the landlord — and the RTM company is brought in too. The Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 modifies sections 46 to 48 where an RTM company manages the premises. Schedule 7, paragraph 12(2) provides:

"References to the landlord include the RTM company."

The word is "include". Compare paragraph 4(2) of the same Schedule, which deals with the service charge provisions of the 1985 Act and says that references to the landlord "are to the RTM company" — a straight substitution. For sections 46 to 48 the RTM company is added alongside the landlord rather than put in its place, and the Act does not spell out what that means for a section 48 notice. In particular, whether an RTM company can satisfy section 48 by giving a notice in its own right is not settled.

The cautious course follows from the part that is clear: the freeholder is still the landlord, and the duty in section 48(1) is the landlord's. So make sure every leaseholder holds a section 48 notice in the freeholder's name giving a working address in England and Wales. If the RTM company sends it, it sends it on the freeholder's behalf and says so — with the freeholder's agreement to the address used. Do not assume a notice the freeholder gave years ago still works: if that address has gone stale, the leaseholders need a fresh one.

The freeholder's section 48 address still matters to the RTM company in another way. Under section 111(3) of the 2002 Act, the RTM company can give the landlord notices under the right-to-manage provisions at "the address last furnished to a member of the RTM company as the landlord's address for service in accordance with section 48 of the 1987 Act" — or, if none, the address on its demands — unless the landlord has notified the company of a different address in England and Wales. Keep a copy of any section 48 notice a leaseholder received from the freeholder — it is usually the address your company will use. The right to manage process guide covers the claim itself.

When to give a section 48 notice

The statute does not set a calendar. In practice, the moments that matter in a self-managed block are:

• When the company takes over. On acquiring the right to manage, or when an RMC stops using a managing agent and starts issuing demands itself. If the agent's office was the address for service, that address is about to stop working.
• Whenever the address changes. A new company secretary, a move of registered office, a change of the director who opens the post.
• When a flat changes hands. A new leaseholder has not received the notice the previous owner did. Build it into your new-owner pack.
• Before you chase arrears. If you are about to send a final reminder, first check that the leaseholder concerned has had a notice and that you can prove it.

What to put in it

Keep it plain. A section 48 notice for a block usually needs:

1. The landlord's full name as registered — your RMC's, if it owns the freehold; the freeholder's, if you are an RTM company sending the notice on its behalf (and say that you are).
2. The flat and the leaseholder it is addressed to.
3. The address in England and Wales at which notices, including notices in proceedings, may be served on the landlord.
4. The date.
5. A short line saying why they are receiving it — quoting section 48(1) is the simplest way.

Then keep proof of when and how you gave it to each leaseholder. That record is what you will need when somebody asks.

A demand is a different document with its own requirements — the landlord's details under section 47, and the prescribed summary of tenants' rights and obligations under the 1985 Act. If you are setting up demands for the first time, our free service charge demand generator shows what a demand needs to carry.

A worked example

A 14-flat block, freehold owned by its RMC. For years the managing agent's office was the address on every notice. The directors give the agent notice and start issuing demands themselves in January.

In March, Flat 9 is two quarters behind. Before chasing, the secretary checks the file: the notices the leaseholders hold all give the agent's office, which the agent has now closed. On a cautious view the RMC has not given a working address for service, so the safe step is to send every leaseholder a fresh section 48 notice giving the company's own address in England — and only then pursue Flat 9. If a leaseholder argues the arrears were never due, the company can show the date its notice was given.

Ten minutes of paperwork at handover would have avoided the question entirely.

How LevyBoard handles it

LevyBoard produces a section 48 notice for each flat in the landlord's name — given on the landlord's behalf where your company is an RTM company or a managing agent — and records when it was given, alongside the demands, Section 20 notices and arrears letters a volunteer director has to issue. You can see what one looks like in this sample section 48 notice.

This guide covers blocks in England and Wales. It is general information based on the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 as published on legislation.gov.uk, not legal advice. Whether a particular notice was validly given turns on its facts — if arrears or a dispute depend on it, take advice from a solicitor specialising in leasehold law, or start with the free service at the Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE).

Sources

• Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 48 — notification by landlord of address for service of notices
• Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 47 — landlord's name and address to be contained in demands
• Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 46 — application of Part VI
• Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, section 54 — notices
• Glen International Ltd v Triplerose Ltd [2007] EWCA Civ 388 — what section 48 requires (paragraph 11)
• Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, Schedule 7 — right to manage: statutory provisions (paragraphs 4 and 12)
• Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, section 111 — notices