It's a simple, low-cost alternative to the court system and you don't have to have any specialist legal knowledge to use it. It deals both with rent disputes between landlords and tenants and also with arguments between leaseholders who own their flats and landlords who own the freehold on which the flats are built.
I recently took the company that owns the freehold of my flat to a tribunal over a disputed extra charge for redecoration work to the block where I live - and won my case, thus saving myself ??638.
My case hinged around the question of who should pay the extra cost resulting from a delay of a year in redecorating the outside of my block of flats. The landlord said that the delay had occurred because it had had to take time chasing some flat owners for the planned cost of redecoration in 2006, which meant that everything ran over into 2007, resulting in a new and higher charge.
But I argued that the landlord was obliged by the lease to redecorate in 2006, that it could have chased the late payers more determinedly and that, in any event, there were funds available to use for making good any shortfall, thus enabling to decoration to take place in 2006 as scheduled.
The RPTS will tackle rent disputes (Rent Assessment Committees)and disputes involving leasehold properties (Leasehold Valuation Tribunals) as well as some cases where tenants have been refused the right to buy their council properties (Residential Property Tribunals).
You can find out more information about the RPTS by clicking onto its website at www.rpts.gov.uk or by ringing the helpline on 0845 600 3178.
If you want advice on whether your case is the kind that would be eligible for hearing at the RPTS you can talk to someone at the Leasehold Advisory Service (if a leaseholder) or try your local branch of Citizens Advice.
The advice offered by the LAS (Tel: 0207-374-5380) is fairly basic, as you might expect from an over-the-phone service, but it is free and much in demand, so expect to wait for a considerable time (sometimes more than 15 minutes before being put through to an adviser. You can also pick up information from its website at www.lease-advice.org.
Once you have decided to take your case to the RPTS you will need to contact your regional office. There are five spread across England, with separate bodies for Scotland and Wales. You will be given a form to fill in, asking for details about your property and a brief summary of your case.
You will have to pay a fee in the case of LVTs, which is on a sliding scale ranging from ??50 for disputed sums of up to ??500, to ??350 where more than ??15,000 is at stake. Very simple cases may be settled on paper without a hearing but most go to a hearing, which involves a further fee of ??150.
There is normally a wait of at least two months between application and an LVT hearing but you will find you have plenty to do during that period. As the applicant in the case you will have to send to the respondent (the person or company you are taking to the LVT) a statement putting your case, accompanied by any documents backing up your case. This takes place several weeks before the hearing and before this the respondent has to put his or her case in a similar statement to you.
Another point to note is that other people in your block of flats will have been notified of the case and are entitled to join it if they wish (and share the costs of the hearing). They are also entitled to make submissions to the LVT which you are supposed to co-ordinate and this could in theory prove quite tricky though in my case the seven other flat-owners who joined my case managed to work together very well.
The other thing you have to be prepared for is a mountain of paperwork. In addition to compiling your own statement and reading the respondent's you then have to put both together, plus a copy of your lease, and then send four copies of the combined document to the LVT before the case is heard.
The hearing itself is before a panel of three people, usually consisting of a solicitor, a surveyor and a lay member such as a JP. I had no legal representative while my opponents fielded a company solicitor but the LVT is at pains to point out that it makes allowances if you have no legal knowledge and that you are not at a disadvantage.
The hearing is informal but quite rigorous, though very fair. Each side puts its case and both sides face questioning from the panel about what they are saying and whether they can back it up. Three fellow flat-owners who had come along to support me were allowed to have their say. I thought the hearing would last about an hour - in the end it went on for nearly six hours, including a break for lunch, so no one can say the panel were not thorough.
Just under three weeks after the hearing I got the welcome news that I had won my case - and had also got the costs of the hearing awarded against the landlord. It made all the hours of preparation worthwhile.
Would I recommmend the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal service to other flat-owners? Yes I would, though they should be fully aware of the time and effort they may have to put in to bring a case before the LVT.

Image courtesy umjanedoan