Complusory purchase – Lengthy negotiations to determine compensation payable under vesting order – Parties seeking agreement without reference to Lands Tribunal except as last resort – Claimant referring matter to Lands Tribunal – Acquiring authority asserting reference time-barred – Whether relevant statutory provision jurisdictional or procedural – Whether claimant estopped from pursuing claim – Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981, section 10(3)
The claimant, the Co-operative Wholesale Society, owned a department store and adjoining land, the subject land, at Front Street, Chester-le-Street. In May 1983 the acquiring authority, Chester-le-Street District Council, made a compulsory purchase order, which included the subject land and other properties required to redevelop the town centre. The order was confirmed on March 6 1986. Because of the large number of acquisitions, a general vesting declaration was made on July 28 1986 by virtue of which the claimant’s land vested on October 10 1986 in the acquiring authority. Accordingly, the relevant date for the purposes of section 10(3) of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 was October 10 1986 and the relevant period expired on October 10 1992.
Negotiations followed from August 1988 onwards between the claimant and the district valuer, on behalf of the acquiring authority, to determine the appropriate compensation. After October 1991 those negotiations were conducted for the claimant by B. Further meetings took place and it was understood that reference would only be made to the Lands Tribunal as a last resort, should all other attempts to negotiate an agreed sum fail, and no mention was made of any deadline.
However, on August 23 1994, a reference was made to the Lands Tribunal. On January 13 1995 solicitors for the acquiring authority applied to dismiss the reference as being out of time. Hearing a preliminary issue, the Lands Tribunal ruled that in the events which had occurred, section 10(3) of the 1981 Act did not operate to bar the claim, because the acquiring authority was estopped from asserting that the claim was statute-barred. The acquiring authority appealed contending that: (1) the time-limit provisions of section 10(3) were jurisdictional and not proceedural and could not be overridden by estoppel or waiver; and (2) the Lands Tribunal had erred in concluding that the appellant was prevented by estoppel or waiver from asserting the time-limit against the respondent.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
1. Although the appellant had submitted that the effect of section 10(3) was jurisdictional, preventing departure from the six-year time-limit by estoppel, the last words of the section made it clear that the section was to be construed as being “as one with Part 1 of the Limitation Act 1980”: see also Canada Southern Railway Co v International Bridge Co (1883) 8 App Cas 723, per Lord Selbourne LC, at p727. In the light of authority and the plain words of the section, this ground of appeal had rightly been withdrawn since on its true construction the section was procedural and was capable of being waived.
2. There had been a plain finding of fact in the Land Tribunal’s award, supported by the testimony of B, that the district valuer for the authority and B conducted their negotiations on the basis that the matter would not be referred to the Lands Tribunal, save as a matter of last resort, and there had been ample material on which to hold that it would be unconscionable for the authority to rely on the six-year time period.
3. The court therefore declared that the claimant was at liberty to pursue its reference before the Lands Tribunal.
Frances Patterson QC (instructed by Dickinson Dees, of Newcastle upon Tyne) appeared for the appellant acquiring authority; Nicholas Huskinson (instructed by Watson Burton, of Newcastle upon Tyne) appeared for the respondent claimant.