What Is a Section 20 Notice, and What Does It Actually Mean for You?

If a letter has landed on your doormat headed "Section 20 Notice" or "Notice of Intention," it means your landlord, freeholder, or management company is planning to spend money on your building — and they think your share of the bill might be significant. This guide explains what that means, what you're entitled to do about it, and — the question most people actually want answered — what happens if they don't follow the rules properly.

This covers the law in England only. Wales has its own, similar but separate, consultation regulations, and Scotland's leasehold law is different again. If your lease is in Wales or Scotland, don't rely on this article for the specifics.

The law behind the letter

Section 20 notices come from section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, as it now stands after amendment by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, backed up by the detail in the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003. Together, these force your landlord to consult leaseholders before running up certain kinds of service charge costs.

The point of the law isn't to stop the work happening. It's to give leaseholders a genuine chance to see what's proposed, question it, and suggest an alternative contractor — before the money is spent, not after.

When does it apply — the two thresholds

Section 20 consultation is triggered by one of two things:

• Qualifying works: any repair, maintenance or improvement project where your individual share of the cost would come to more than £250. It's your contribution that matters, not the total job cost — on a big block, even a modest total bill can trigger it once split many ways.
• Qualifying long-term agreements (QLTAs): any contract lasting more than 12 months (a lift maintenance contract, a cleaning contract, a managing agent's own agreement) where your share would cost more than £100 a year.

Those figures — £250 and £100 — have applied since the 2003 Regulations came into force and, as far as we're aware, have not been increased since. Worth bearing in mind: a lot of leaseholders assume these thresholds must have risen with inflation. They haven't.

One thing to watch for: landlords sometimes split a large job into smaller phases specifically to try to keep each phase under £250 per leaseholder. If that's happening — several "small" jobs on the same building within a short space of time that look like one project artificially cut up — it's worth raising as a question, because a tribunal can look through that kind of phasing.

The three stages

Consultation happens in three steps, and your landlord is required to go through all of them for qualifying works (a slightly different, shorter route applies for some QLTAs):

1. Notice of Intention. The landlord tells you what work they're planning and why, and invites you to comment within 30 days. Crucially, this is your chance to nominate a contractor — someone you think should be asked to give a quote. If you or your neighbours want to put someone forward, you need to do it in writing within this 30-day window.
2. Notice of Estimates. After getting at least two estimates (including one from any contractor you validly nominated), the landlord must show you the estimates and, again, invite written observations within 30 days.
3. Notice of Award. Once the contract is awarded, the landlord tells you who got the job and, in certain circumstances, why — particularly if it wasn't the cheapest estimate or wasn't your nominated contractor.

What "observations" actually mean — and whether they achieve anything

An observation is simply a written comment you send during one of the 30-day windows — about the proposed work, the specification, the estimates, or the process. The landlord has a legal duty to have regard to what you say. That's a real duty, not nothing — but it isn't a duty to agree with you, and it isn't a veto.

In practice, observations are most useful when they're specific: pointing out that an estimate looks inflated compared to similar jobs, that a contractor has a poor track record on other blocks, or that the specification includes work that isn't actually needed. Vague objections to the principle of spending money rarely change anything. A well-argued, evidenced observation sometimes does.

What happens if the landlord gets it wrong

This is the part people most want to know, and it's also the part most commonly misunderstood.

If a landlord fails to consult properly — skips a stage, doesn't give the full 30 days, doesn't tell you about a nomination right, or gets the estimates process wrong — the starting position under the Act is that they cannot recover more than £250 from each leaseholder for qualifying works (or, broadly, £100 a year for a QLTA) until they put it right.

But that is not usually the end of the story. Under section 20ZA of the 1985 Act, a landlord can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for dispensation — permission to be excused some or all of the consultation requirements. Tribunals grant dispensation fairly often. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Daejan Investments Ltd v Benson (2013), the test tribunals actually apply is whether the leaseholders were genuinely prejudiced by the failure — not whether the landlord followed the paperwork perfectly. If a tribunal decides the leaseholders weren't really disadvantaged (for example, because the price would have been the same anyway), it can grant dispensation and the landlord recovers the full cost after all, sometimes on condition it pays your reasonable costs of opposing the application.

So the honest answer is: a procedural failure by your landlord does not usually mean you end up paying nothing. It means you may have grounds to challenge the charge, and the outcome depends on whether you can show real prejudice — a genuinely cheaper contractor you couldn't put forward, or a cost you'd have queried and had reduced. That's a case worth putting in front of a solicitor or the Tribunal directly rather than assuming the law lets you off.

What you can actually do right now

• Read the notice carefully and note the deadline — it's usually 30 days from the date on the letter, not the date you opened it.
• Check the figure against your lease's apportionment percentage, not just the total project cost.
• If you want to nominate a contractor, do it in writing, within time, and to the address specified.
• Ask for the specification and previous estimates if they aren't included — you're entitled to inspect supporting documents.
• Keep copies of everything you send.

This is practical guidance, not legal advice — for a specific dispute, speak to a solicitor, contact the free Leasehold Advisory Service (LEASE), or apply to the First-tier Tribunal.