CCTV being used in communal areas and threatened with court action

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

CSI_Yorkshire said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I thought age was a protected characteristic, shouldn’t the lease prevent anyone from “playing” in this communal area, or am I misunderstanding the discrimination rules? 

You're misunderstanding the discrimination rules.

They don't mean that you can't use a protected characteristic as a determining factor, they just mean you have to have a legitimate and defensible reason for it.

Age-related ticket pricing (old and young) or only providing free bus passes to people over a certain age are both discrimination and unlawful under your interpretation, but in reality they are not.

It also doesn't apply to every situation anyway - it was primarily employment in its first drafts.  Taken to an absurd extreme, it's not age discrimination if your friends are all over 30.

I understand the rules aren't absolute, a service provider making age-related concessions and benefits (bus pass example) is a specific example of different treatment being lawful among others:

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/age-discrimination

but none of which (listed in the link at least) relate to this situation.

eddddy said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I thought age was a protected characteristic, shouldn’t the lease prevent anyone from “playing” in this communal area, or am I misunderstanding the discrimination rules? 

I suspect that the lease doesn't mention the word "children".  Otherwise it would mean Adults could play football, cricket, etc on the deck.

The lease might specifically prohibit the playing of games...

... but I think it's more likely to say something like the deck is for the use of leaseholders to access their properties only.


So playing games, having bbqs, having birthday parties, doing Karaoke nights, storing bikes, storing old fridges, etc on the deck, would all be breaches of the lease.



It might be helpful if the OP posted the relevant clauses in the lease (but there might be multiple clauses that need to be read together).

Thanks, good post, makes sense  

Perhaps as you say OP can clarify how "one rule is children can’t play in the communal area" is spelt out in the lease. 

Jonboy_1984

Our previous lease had a clause that said something like “comply with the site rules that may be displayed by the freeholder or their representatives”. Said rules appeared on a new notice board 8 years into our ownership and we had broken half of them at some point and the no pets one on an ongoing basis. They also included rules about patio areas that where demised to us

How this would have ended if they attempted to enforce I don’t know.

NameUnavailable

It seems very odd that the manager/freeholder or whoever would tell the caretaker that they are taking the leaseholders to court. They would in any case have to first try to resolve the issue - writing to point out the breach and requesting them to stop etc.

Either there's more to this or the caretaker made stuff up for whatever reason.

eddddy

NameUnavailable said:

It seems very odd that the manager/freeholder or whoever would tell the caretaker that they are taking the leaseholders to court. They would in any case have to first try to resolve the issue - writing to point out the breach and requesting them to stop etc.

Either there's more to this or the caretaker made stuff up for whatever reason.

The Building Manager and Caretaker will be the direct or indirect employees of the freeholder (assuming a 2 party lease). So I guess the caretaker is simply following instructions from their employer to gather evidence of breaches of the lease.


And I imagine that the accurate message would be something like:

"Following a complaint, the freeholder intends to take enforcement action against the leaseholders, which could ultimately end up with a tribunal/court case".

And somebody (e.g. the caretaker or the OP) has simply abbreviated that to "They are taking the leaseholders to court".


I think people often say things like "We're taking you to court" when they mean "If we can't get this dispute resolved, we are prepared to take the matter to court".

MultiFuelBurner

Could it be the CCTV is there for the protection of the LL should there be an injury claim.

It could be their insurance does not cover children playing in that area.

Of course tenants will always do what they want to do, as the OP has stated they don't care about rules and have justified this by not wanting to walk 10 mins to a park. It's a lovely community apparently and not a single tenant is annoyed with children playing in a designated no play area🤔

As for the caretaker, request those pictures and see if they are provided if it concerns you.