Shomik Datta and Luke Decker appear in the Supreme Court in Lowe v The Governors of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse
Shomik Datta and Luke Decker appear in the Supreme Court today for the Respondent in Lowe v The Governors of Sutton’s Hospital in Charterhouse (UKSC/2025/0143).
The appeal concerns the ‘prescribed information’ which a landlord must give a tenant when a deposit is taken, and whether a landlord which protected the deposit and told its tenant what he needed to know can nonetheless be penalised because its paperwork did not follow the prescribed form to the letter. Section 213(6)(a) of the Housing Act 2004 permits the information to be given “in the prescribed form or in a form substantially to the same effect”.
The Respondent landlord is a registered charity. In January 2010 it let a flat at Preachers Court, Charterhouse Square, to the Appellant, who paid a deposit of £3,300 under a written tenancy agreement which he signed and initialled, and which set out, under the heading ‘Deposit’, the circumstances in which the deposit could be used. The tenancy was not then an assured shorthold tenancy; it became one by operation of law in October 2010, when the rent limit for assured tenancies was raised. Out of an abundance of caution, the Respondent’s agent protected the deposit in advance of that change and sent the Appellant a signed covering letter enclosing the certificate of prescribed information, asking him to sign and return it. The certificate contained an obvious slip: it referred to deductions “according to Clause 6 of the Tenancy Agreement attached”, when the Appellant’s agreement had no clause 6 and its deposit clause was clause 5.3; and the agent’s signature was on the covering letter rather than on the certificate itself. Some 11 years later, and after the Respondent had served notice seeking possession, the Appellant claimed £120,888 under section 214 of the 2004 Act, being the maximum statutory penalty for each of the ten tenancies which he said had arisen, in one of the largest known tenancy deposit claims under the Act.
The claim has failed at every level. His Honour Judge Luba KC dismissed it in the County Court at Central London ([2022] EW Misc 8 (CC)) in October 2022 , finding that the deposit had been protected, that the Appellant knew it had been, and that the Respondent’s agents had complied with the legislation. Adam Johnson J dismissed the first appeal ([2024] EWHC 646 (Ch); [2024] HLR 29), and the Court of Appeal (Asplin, Nicola Davies, and Andrews LJJ) dismissed the second ([2025] EWCA Civ 857; [2025] 1 WLR 5483; [2026] HLR 25), each holding that a reasonable recipient of the certificate would have appreciated the slip and found the deposit clause in his own agreement, and that the certificate read with the signed covering letter was substantially to the same effect as a signed certificate. The Supreme Court (Lord Hodge, Lord Sales, and Lady Rose) granted permission to appeal in December 2025.
The Supreme Court (Lord Reed, Lord Hamblen, Lord Leggatt, Lady Simler, and Lord Doherty) will consider two questions:
- whether the ‘information requirement’ in article 2(1)(g)(vi) of the Housing (Tenancy Deposits) (Prescribed Information) Order 2007 is satisfied where the prescribed information refers, by an obvious error, to the wrong clause number of a tenancy agreement which is not attached, in circumstances where the tenant already held, and had signed, the agreement containing the deposit clause; and
- whether the ‘confirmation requirement’ in article 2(1)(g)(vii) of the 2007 Order is satisfied where the landlord’s agent signs the covering letter enclosing the certificate, rather than the certificate itself, the two documents having been sent together and the letter having asked the tenant to sign and return the certificate.
The answers will matter well beyond this case. Since 1 May 2026, the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 has extended the tenancy deposit scheme from assured shorthold tenancies to private-sector assured tenancies generally and, under the new section 215(3) of the 2004 Act, a court may make an order for possession against an assured tenant who has paid a deposit (other than on Grounds 7A and 14, and unless the deposit has been returned or a claim under section 214 has been disposed of) only if the requirements of sections 213(5) and (6)(a) have been complied with. If the Appellant is right, a landlord which protected the deposit and gave its tenant the information the legislation requires could nonetheless face a penalty of up to three times the deposit for every tenancy and, unless it first returns the deposit, be unable to recover possession of its own property, because of a slip in a clause number or because the signature was on the covering letter rather than the certificate.
Shomik Datta, who has represented the Respondent landlord successfully at every stage of the proceedings, and Luke Decker represent the Respondent landlord in the Supreme Court. They are instructed by James MacDonald-Pearce of Birketts LLP.
The hearing is listed for one day and can be followed on the Supreme Court’s website here.
