Compulsory purchase – Compensation – Time limit – Former public house acquired by compulsory purchase from claimant company – Claimant applying for and receiving advance payment of compensation – Claimant later filing notice of reference to determine amount of compensation due – Whether claim time-barred under section 10(3) of Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981 – Whether made more than six years after claimant could reasonably be expected to know of vesting of property in acquiring authority – Claim dismissed
In 2007, the London Development Agency (LDA) acquired a former public house in Stratford, London E15, from the claimant by compulsory purchase. The property vested in the LDA in May 2007 pursuant to a general vesting declaration. In late April 2009, the claimant submitted a formal application for an advance payment of compensation. An advance payment of £387,000, plus interest, was made in July 2009.
In May 2015, the claimant filed a notice of reference seeking a determination of the compensation payable to it as a result of the compulsory purchase. The Greater London Authority, as the acquiring authority and successor to the LDA, argued that the claim was time-barred under section 10(3) of the Compulsory Purchase (Vesting Declarations) Act 1981, having been made more than six years after the date when the claimant knew, or could reasonably be expected to have known, of the vesting of its interest in the LDA. The authority relied on two letters from its solicitor to the claimant in April 2007, one referring to the anticipated vesting date and a second confirming that date, and on a series of letters sent by its surveyor to the claimant between 2007 and 2009, the first of which, dating from late April 2007, proposed a settlement and expressly referred to the vesting of legal title in May of that year.
The claimant argued that it could not reasonably have known of the vesting until a much later date. Its managing director, who ran the claimant and various other companies from the same registered office, maintained that he had not seen the April 2007 letters from the LDA’s solicitor as he was in the process of moving offices at the time, which had involved transferring a large number of documents. He claimed that in 2013, at the request of his solicitor, he had looked for the vesting order for the purposes of making a reference to the tribunal in respect of two properties and had found a vesting order dated July 2009, which he had mistakenly believed to refer to the property in question but which had actually referred to a different piece of land acquire under a different vesting declaration. While he accepted that he had received the letters from the LDA’s surveyor, he claimed that he had understood them to relate only to the negotiations over compensation and hit to the vesting of his interest.
Held: The claim was dismissed.
While the claimant had been unaware in 2013 of the vesting date of the property, it was impossible to draw any inference from that fact as to his knowledge in 2007 and 2009. It was accepted that the letters from the LDA’s solicitor were received at the claimant’s registered office and that there was a system for transferring those letters to the new office. That being so, it was more probably than not that the two letters had arrived at the new office and that the claimant’s managing director had seen them. In any event, where a company received a letter at its registered office, it could reasonably be expected to know of the contents of that letter.
A fair reading of the three crucial letters from April 2007 could only lead to the conclusion that the property had vested in the LDA in May 2007. Although the letters were written before that date, vesting took place as a matter of law once the relevant notices had been served. Anyone reading the three letters could reasonably be expected to know that the property vested in May 2007.
Further, the application for an advance payment could only be made after the vesting of the land in the LDA. The claimant’s managing director was aware of that matter and, thus, knew by the date of the application that the property had vested in the LDA. It followed that the compensation claim was statute-barred.
Simon Pickles (instructed by Greenwood & Co) appeared for the claimant; Richard Glover QC (instructed by Eversheds LLP) appeared for the acquiring authority.
Sally Dobson, barrister
Click here to read transcript: Overseas Plastic Import Export Ltd v Greater London Authority
