A pensioner who won £3,500 at a Leasehold Valuation Tribunal has made a formal complaint that Benjamin Mire, who runs a large property management company and was criticised in the case, also sits on the same local LVT as a panel member.

“This is a clear conflict of interest and affronts every notion of justice I have ever learned,” says Colin Dennard, 71, a retired international hotelier, from Bournemouth. “I felt most uncomfortable. It is clearly wrong to have to face someone who appears as a member of the tribunal panel at the very same LVT offices.”

Dennard, who managed Carlton Hotel in Cannes and the Meurice in Paris, has sent a detailed complaint to barrister Siobhan McGrath, the head of the LVT system.

The case, in which Dennard represented friends for no fee, is the second occasion when he has faced Mire, 52, of Trust Property Management Group plc, which manages the property interests of freeholder Lakeside Developments. Mire is a chartered surveyor, which is why he is qualified to sit on LVT panels.

In his first action against Mire in 2009, who again represented Lakeside Developments, Dennard successfully insisted that the case be heard by the London LVT because of Mire’s involvement as a panel member in the southern region. He received a confidential settlement.

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