Manaquel Company Ltd v London Borough of Lambeth
The Upper Tribunal has given judgment in Manaquel Company Ltd v London Borough of Lambeth [2025] UKUT 97 (LC), an important case on appeals against improvement notices under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004.
Richard Miller, led by Nicholas Isaac KC and instructed by Nicholas Goldreich of Comptons LLP, had previously acted for the successful Appellant in quashing an improvement notice served by the Respondent local authority. The Appellant then applied for rule 13 costs. Despite stringent criticism of the Respondent local authority, the First-Tier Tribunal found that its behaviour had not been unreasonable, and declined to make an order. The Appellant appealed to the Upper Tribunal.
In the substantive appeal in the First-Tier Tribunal, it had been common ground that the date of assessment of the improvement notice was the date of the appeal, and the parties had directed their Statements of Case and evidence to addressing the condition of the estate at that time. Prior to hearing the rule 13 costs appeal, the Deputy Chamber President asked the parties to consider the case of Waltham Forest London Borough Council v Hussain [2023] EWCA Civ 733, in which the Court of Appeal decided that appeals against selective licensing decisions under Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004 were (i) to be assessed with reference to the facts at the time of the decision, not those at the time of the appeal, and (ii) to be considered giving the local authority due deference as the body entrusted by Parliament to make that decision. The Housing Act 2004 uses identical language when setting out the procedures to appeal against improvement notices and selective licensing decisions.
Martin Rodger KC decided, applying Hussain, that improvement notice appeals involve examination of the notice and the state of the property at the date of service of the notice, and that the local authority should be given a certain amount of deference in its conclusions. To the extent that events occurring since the date of the notice, such as works being undertaken to the property or new technologies emerging, may render an improvement notice inappropriate or redundant, the proper course of action is for a recipient to request that the local authority vary the notice and appeal that decision if they remain dissatisfied.
The practical significance of this decision is that improvement notices (and, by extension, other notices under Part 1 of the Housing Act 2004) will be more difficult to appeal, and variation will assume greater importance in the future. The consequence for the rule 13 costs appeal was that the First-Tier Tribunal had approached the matter on the wrong basis. While its decision was flawed, including in its failure to consider whether the Respondent local authority’s conduct admitted of a reasonable explanation, the Upper Tribunal declined to set aside the refusal and remake the decision.
A copy of the judgment can be found here.
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