Practice and procedure – Park homes – Lease – Respondent park home resident requesting copy of appellant park owner’s lease – First-tier Tribunal ordering appellant to supply copy – Appellant appealing – Whether resident entitled to see copy of lease – Appeal allowed
The respondent lived in a mobile home on a site protected by the Mobile Homes Act 1983 at St Dominic Park, Harrowbarrow, Cornwall. He was entitled to station it there by virtue of an agreement made with the freeholder of the site in October 2006. In December 2018, the appellant took a lease of the site and the local authority agreed to transfer the site licence to the appellant, which then managed the site.
Typically, residents on a park homes site owned their mobile home but did not have any freehold or leasehold interest in the pitch on which it stood; they had only a contractual right to be there (as had the respondent). Therefore, they were vulnerable because they did not have the rights and protections afforded to tenants, and the 1983 Act sought to remedy that vulnerability by providing appropriate protection.
In March 2019, the respondent asked the appellant for a copy of its lease. In April 2019 he applied to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) under section 4 of the 1983 Act for an order that the appellant supply him with a copy of its lease. The FTT made the order sought but gave it leave to apply to redact any commercially sensitive parts of the lease.
The appellant appealed. It contended that neither the 1983 Act nor the 2006 agreement conferred on the respondent any right to see the lease; and there was no basis on which that confidential and commercially sensitive document could be subject to an order for disclosure to the respondent. The appellant regarded its lease as confidential, and was concerned that disclosure to the respondent would lead to its publication on social media. The respondent’s application was frivolous and vexatious, and should have been dismissed.
The appeal was determined under the FTT’s written representations procedure.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
(1) The 2006 agreement stated that the site owner’s interest in the site continued in perpetuity, and that the right to station the mobile home on the pitch would subsist until the agreement was determined in accordance with sections 3, 4, 5 or 6 of the 1983 Act. Those provisions gave the occupier, but not the site owner, the right to terminate the agreement by notice; they also allowed the termination of the agreement for breach of its terms, or where the occupier was no longer living there, or where the condition of the mobile home was detrimental to the amenity of the site. Absent fault on his part, the appellant had the right to stay on the pitch for ever. The effect of section 3 of the 1983 Act was that that right was unaffected by a change in the ownership of the site.
(2) Section 4 of the 1983 Act provided that the court had jurisdiction to determine any question arising under the Act or any agreement to which it applied, and to entertain any proceedings relating thereto. Section 4 was in very broad terms and, with the exception of disputes over termination, the proper forum for the resolution of contractual disputes between park home owners and the owners of protected sites in England was the FTT. However, section 4 did not give it carte blanche in respect of every aspect of the relationship between the site owner and the occupier of the mobile home. Section 4 did not confer any rights; it provided only the forum for the resolution of disputes arising under the 1983 Act or the occupier’s agreement.
Neither the 1983 Act nor the 2006 agreement conferred on the respondent any right to inspect the title of a site owner who was the successor to the freeholder who made the agreement. Nor was there any other dispute between the parties to which disclosure of the lease would be relevant. Whatever the length of the appellant’s lease, it could have no effect upon the respondent’s security of occupation. Accordingly, there could be no dispute between the appellant and the respondent about that security. Section 4 was not engaged.
(3) Section 231A of the Housing Act 2004 conferred wide-ranging case management powers on the FTT. Where there was a dispute about a term of the agreement, the FTT would have power to order disclosure of relevant document (and had that power under the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013). But section 231A was not engaged in this case because section 4 was not engaged: Wyldecrest Parks (Management) Ltd v Santer [2018] UKUT 30 (LC); [2018] PLSCS 20 considered.
(4) It appeared from the respondent’s written submissions that he was aware that his own security of occupation could not be compromised by a later site owner’s tenure; his concern was for future occupiers, and for current occupiers who might be induced to accept a new agreement in place of their current permanent arrangement. The purpose of disclosure of the lease in the present case was not the resolution of a dispute, but the publication of information for the assistance of occupiers and the deterring of would-be occupiers from entering agreements with the appellant. On that basis, the appellant’s concerns about the release of confidential information to the respondent were well-founded.
However, the respondent had no right to see the appellant’s lease and the FTT had no power to require the appellant to provide a copy. The fact that the appellant would have to disclose the length of its term if it made a new agreement was irrelevant because that did not entitle the respondent as a current resident to see the lease or to know the length of the term. The FTT’s decision had been made without any legal basis and would be set aside. The respondent’s application for a copy of the lease would be refused.
Eileen O’Grady, barrister
Click here to read a transcript of Wyldecrest Parks (Management) Ltd v Turner
