The local housing authority refused to grant or revoked licences for a number of houses that were owned or managed by one or other of the applicants, under either Part 2 or Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004. The first applicant was the mother of the third applicant, who was the sole director of the second applicant company. The applicants appealed to the First-tier Tribunal against the local authority’s decisions. The First-tier Tribunal allowed the appeal, concluding that by the time of the appeal hearing the second and third applicants were fit and proper persons to hold a licence. That decision was upheld by the Upper Tribunal. The authority appealed, contending that, pursuant to paragraph 34 of Schedule 5 to the 2004 Act, the tribunal ought to have determined the appeal by reference to the situation as at the time of the decision by the local authority, not at the date of the appeal.
On the appeal —
Held, appeal allowed. On a true construction of paragraph 34 of Schedule 5 to the Housing Act 2004, on an appeal against a local housing authority’s revocation of or refusal to grant a housing licence, the task for the First-tier Tribunal was to determine whether, at the time it was made, the original decision was wrong in the sense that, having accorded it the deference or special weight appropriate to a decision involving an exercise of judgement by the body tasked by Parliament with the primary responsibility for making licensing decisions, the tribunal disagreed with the original decision. Although in reaching its decision the appellate tribunal could consider matters of which the authority had been unaware, those matters had to be restricted to matters which tended to show that the local housing authority’s decision had been right or wrong at the time when it was made. It followed that in the present case the First-tier Tribunal had erred in its approach to the appeal by considering matters as they stood at the date of the appeal and in failing to afford sufficient deference to the authority’s decision and the reasons for it. Accordingly, since the application of the correct approach would have resulted in the dismissal of the appeals to the First-tier Tribunal, the decision of the local authority would be confirmed and the decisions of the tribunals would be reversed insofar as necessary to give effect to that confirmation (paras 62–66, 69, 73–76, 77, 88–90, 93–94. 95, 96, 104).
Ashley Underwood KC and Riccardo Calzavara (instructed by Sharpe Pritchard LLP) for the local authority.
Justin Bates and Nick Grant (instructed by Anthony Gold Solicitors) for the applicants.