Rating – Non-domestic rates – Completion notice – Validity – Local Government Finance Act 1988 – Local authority delivering completion notice to bring redeveloped building into rating list with effect from specified date – Notice addressed to “Owner” of building rather than giving actual name – Notice handed to building receptionist and then scanned and forwarded electronically to building owner – Whether notice invalidated by failure to give name of building owner – Whether notice validly served – Appeal allowed
The respondent owned a building on Kingsway, London WC2B, which it had redeveloped to provide 130,000 square feet of office space behind the original building façade. In March 2012, the appellant local authority issued a completion notice, under Schedule 4A to the Local Government Finance Act 1988, to bring the building into the 2010 rating list with effect from June 2012. The notice was addressed simply to the “Owner” of the building and was delivered there by hand; it was given to a receptionist employed by the company which managed the building on the respondent’s behalf. Neither that company nor its receptionist had any authority to accept the service of legal documents on behalf of the respondent. The receptionist scanned the completion notice and transmitted it electronically to the respondent.
The respondent appealed against the completion notice and also submitted a proposal that the building’s entry in the rating list, with a rateable value of £2.75m, be deleted on the grounds that the completion notice had been invalid. The proposal was not accepted but the respondent’s appeal against that decision was allowed by the Valuation Tribunal for England (VTE) along with the completion notice appeal. The Upper Tribunal reversed the VTE’s decision that the completion notice had not been validly served: [2015] UKUT 301 (LC); [2016] EGLR 2. The respondent’s appeal against that decision was allowed: [2017] EWCA Civ 430; [2017] EGLR 30.
The appellant appealed. The issue for the Supreme Court was whether the completion notice was validly served on the date it was received by the respondent, in circumstances where: (i) it was not delivered directly but passed through the hands of building manager’s receptionist, who was not authorised for that purpose by either party; and (ii) it was received in electronic, rather than paper form.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
(1) Although schedule 4A of the 1988 Act set out specific methods of service, it did not exclude other methods available under the general law. The means by which the notice arrived at its destination was not wholly immaterial. In itself the reference to the billing authority was simply to identify the body responsible for service; it said nothing about how that was to be done. The real issue was whether the appellant authority “caused” the notice to be received by the respondent. There had to be a sufficient causal connection between the appellant’s actions and the receipt of the notice by the respondent. Regarding the interposition of a third party, by way of the receptionist, it was unnecessary and unrealistic to introduce concepts of agency or statutory delegation into the simple sequence of events. The receptionist did no more than would reasonably be expected of a responsible employee in that position. It was the natural consequence of the appellant’s actions. Causation did not necessarily depend on control. If a notice was correctly addressed, but mistakenly delivered to a neighbouring address and then passed on by the occupant to the intended recipient, there was no reason why that should not be treated as effective service under ordinary principles of causation, even though the neighbour was not under the control of either party.
The court was not persuaded by arguments about potential uncertainty as to the date of service. Some uncertainty in that respect was inherent in the legislation, in which neither the methods of service nor the dates of service in different circumstances were exhaustively defined. Where the date of service was critical, a billing authority might choose a statutory method of service which eliminated or minimised the risk of invalidity by failure to specify the correct date of service. If it chose a non-statutory method, it had to bear that risk. The risk of prejudice to the building owner was limited, since outside the statutory grounds service depended on actual receipt by the intended recipient. The time for appeal was also related to receipt. Townsend Carriers Ltd v Pfizer Ltd [1977] 1 EGLR 37 applied.
(2) Before the enactment of the Electronic Communications Act 2000, in Hastie & Jenkerson v McMahon [1990] 1 WLR 1575, the Court of Appeal accepted that service of a list of documents by fax was valid service for the purposes of a consent order in civil proceedings under the Rules of the Supreme Court. Given that that was the state of the general law immediately preceding the enactment of the 2000 Act, Parliament must be taken to have legislated against that background There was no good reason for distinguishing transmission by fax from transmission by email as in the present case. The respondent had not been able to indicate any provision of the 2000 Act that expressly or impliedly restricted the previous law, nor an overall inconsistency sufficient to overcome the general presumption that Parliament does not intend to change the common law. It was not enough that the new law might overlap in certain respects with the general law. Against the background of the detailed scheme established by or under the 2000 Act, it might seem anomalous that the same result might be achieved in some cases by more informal means. However, the purpose of the 2000 Act was to make provision “to facilitate the use of electronic communications …”. There was nothing to indicate an intention to cut down the existing law. The purpose of the 2000 Act and Orders made under it was to provide a clear and certain basis for the routine use of electronic methods by authorities. That purpose was not undermined by a conclusion that under general principles, and on the particular facts of this case, the notice was successfully served by email. In all the circumstances, the property was correctly brought into the rating list with effect from 1 June 2012.
Sebastian Kokelaar (instructed by Tri-Borough Shared Legal Services) appeared for the appellant; Daniel Kolinsky QC and Luke Wilcox (instructed by the In-house Solicitor) appeared for the respondent.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
Click here to read a transcript of UKI (Kingsway) Ltd v Westminster City Council
