Mobile Homes Act 1983 – Sale of mobile home – Objection by park owner – Appellant park owner seeking to object to sale of mobile home by occupiers – Appellant giving notice to occupiers of intention to apply to first-tier tribunal for refusal order preventing sale under para 7B of Schedule 21 to 1983 Act – First-tier tribunal rejecting subsequent application made by appellant – Para 7B(2) and (3) – Whether notice validly given to occupiers – Whether legislation requiring application to be made before notice given – Whether notice of prospective application sufficient – Appeal dismissed
The appellant was the owner of a mobile home park at Chipperfield, Hertfordshire, which was a protected site within the meaning of the Mobile Homes Act 1983. Occupiers of the mobile homes was governed by the terms of pitch agreements, some of which prohibited the keeping of any animals in the pitch. In September 2013, the occupiers of one of the mobile homes gave notice to the appellant that they proposed to sell the mobile home, and assign their pitch agreement, to a third party who wished to keep two dogs there. The appellant took the view that this would be a breach of the terms of the pitch agreement and informed the occupiers that it would object to the proposed assignment unless an assurance could be given that the purchaser would comply with the agreement.
No such assurance was forthcoming and, in October 2013, the appellant wrote to the occupiers informing them of its intention to object to the sale by way of an application to the first-tier tribunal (FTT) under para 7B(3) of Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act, as introduced by section 10 of the Mobile Homes Act 2013. On the following day, it completed the FTT’s standard form of application for a refusal order to prevent the occupiers from selling.
The FTT dismissed the application on the grounds that the application was defective notwithstanding that it had been made, and notice had been given to the occupiers, within the prescribed period of 21 days of the appellant receiving notice of the proposed sale. The FTT read para 7B(3) in the light of the preceding para 7B(2), which referred to the giving of notice to the occupiers that “the owner has applied to a tribunal”, and concluded that the application had to be made first before notice of that application was given to the occupiers; it held that the chronology of those steps was important and prior notice to the occupiers of an intention to apply would not suffice for that purpose.
The appellant appealed. By that time, the purchaser had withdrawn from the sale and consequently the occupiers of the mobile home did not participate in the appeal.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The occupiers of a mobile home would be free to sell it, and to assign their pitch, if the first condition in para 7(2) of Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act was fulfilled, namely that, within the relevant 21-day period, the occupiers did not receive a notice that the owner of the park had applied for a refusal order. The condition would be satisfied not only if the occupiers received no notice at all within the 21-day period but also if the notice that it received did not correspond to the description in paragraph 7B(2).
For the owner to avoid the first condition being satisfied, the application to the FTT actually had to be made within the 21-day period; it was not sufficient for the owner to simply make a statement in the notice that an application had been made or would be made. Parliament could not have intended that a false statement would be as good for that purpose as a true statement. The plain and ordinary meaning of the first condition, with its requirement that notice be given that “the owner has applied”, indicated that notice could not be given prospectively of an event that had not yet occurred. The first condition was satisfied unless a notice had been received by the occupier that an application had been made; both the application and the notice, in that order, therefore had to come within the 21-day period.
That conclusion was supported by a consideration of the second, alternative condition. The second condition, dealing with the situation where an application for a refusal order had been made and rejected, could be satisfied only if an application was made within the 21-day period. It followed that the consequences of a failure to make an application at all, or the making of a late application, were dealt with by the first condition. The statutory purpose was that, in the case of a late application or no application, the occupier’s freedom to assign was to be crystallised at the end of the 21-day period by the first condition being satisfied. The first condition had therefore to be understood as requiring not only notice be given to the occupier within the 21-day period that the owner has applied for a refusal order, but also that within the same period the application had actually been made.
That construction of the legislation avoided the unsatisfactory consequences that could follow if a mere notice of intention to make an application were treated as sufficient to avoid the satisfaction of the first condition. If such a notice, given within the 21-day period, could prevent the first condition from being satisfied, the occupier would be left in a state of uncertainty up to and after the end of the 21-day period as to whether an application had in fact been made. Those consequences would be inconsistent with the change in emphasis of the 2013 Act in putting the burden of prompt action on the park owner who sought to object to an assignment. The policy of the Act was that the occupiers should be aware at the end of 21 days whether they could assign or not; since the making of an application within that period was an essential step in restricting the freedom to assign, the notice that the owner had to give was a notice that an application had been made.
Accordingly, the appellant’s failure to serve a notice corresponding to the description in parah 7B(2) meant that the first condition had been satisfied and that the occupiers were free sell the mobile home and assign the pitch agreement without the appellant’s approval.
Per curiam: Where an owner had in fact sent an application for a refusal order to a tribunal, it should be permissible for it to give a notice to the occupier saying that an application “has been made”, even before receiving confirmation from the tribunal itself that the application had been received. The language of the first condition seemed to permit that outcome.
The appellant was represented by its director, David Sunderland; the … did not respond to the appeal.
Sally Dobson, barrister
