Murphy v Wyatt

The Mobile Homes Act 1983 applies only where the qualifying conditions exist when the agreement is made, or when a contractual variation brings it within the Act. A later change of circumstances, including the subsequent grant of planning permission, is insufficient.

The agreement must also be exclusively, or substantially exclusively, concerned with the right to station a mobile home on a pitch and occupy it as the occupier’s only or main residence. The Act neither protects an entire letting containing substantial additional land nor severs the pitch from the remainder.

A judge may decide a case on an unargued point, but procedural fairness ordinarily requires the parties to receive a clear and fair opportunity to address any point material to the outcome.

The appellant succeeded to a weekly tenancy of 1.7 acres on which she occupied a mobile home. The tenancy had originally been granted for a horse-stabling and livery business. Residential occupation began later, and a certificate of lawful use was obtained only many years after the tenancy commenced.

The Central London County Court dismissed the respondent’s possession claim because the notice to quit took effect after proceedings began. It nevertheless held that the tenancy received no protection under the Mobile Homes Act 1983. The occupier appealed that conclusion.

The principal questions were whether an agreement initially outside the Act could enter it following a later grant of planning permission, and whether the Act could apply where the agreement comprised substantially more land than the mobile-home pitch.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. The Mobile Homes Act 1983 did not apply to the tenancy. The Master of the Rolls gave the leading judgment. Arden LJ agreed and supplied additional reasoning; Longmore LJ agreed with both judgments.

2. Section 1(1) ordinarily requires the statutory conditions to be satisfied when the agreement is made. The structure of sections 1 and 2, including the written-statement regime and the provisions governing expiry of planning permission, is inconsistent with an agreement entering and leaving the statutory scheme merely as circumstances change. The later certificate of lawful use therefore did not bring the existing tenancy within the Act.

3. Section 1(8), formerly section 1(4), addresses a contractual variation. A variation means an arrangement between the parties altering their contractual terms. It is treated as the making of a fresh agreement where its effect is to bring the agreement within the Act. A planning decision or mere change of circumstances is not such a variation.

4. The Act applies only to an agreement whose exclusive, or substantially exclusive, purpose is to confer the right to station a mobile home on a pitch and occupy it as a residence. Its provisions concerning security, assignment, pitch fees, maintenance and relocation are directed to the home and pitch. They cannot sensibly govern substantial additional agricultural or business land.

5. The Act does not sever a protected pitch from a wider indivisible letting. It contains no machinery for apportioning rent, creating access rights or resolving conflicts with agricultural and business-tenancy legislation. The tenancy of 1.7 acres therefore fell outside the statutory scheme.

6. A judge may in principle decide a case on a point not advanced by the parties. Save perhaps in exceptional circumstances, procedural fairness requires the judge to identify the point clearly and give the parties a fair opportunity to answer it, especially where it is decisive.

7. Arden LJ added that the Act provides only a limited, rather than comprehensive, measure of security. Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights was not for decision on this appeal, although it might arise in any later possession proceedings.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The court dismissed the occupier’s appeal and affirmed the ruling that the Mobile Homes Act 1983 did not apply to the tenancy. [2011] EWCA Civ 408
2. Central London County Court: His Honour Judge Wakefield dismissed the possession claim because the notice to quit took effect after proceedings were commenced. He also held that the tenancy fell outside the 1983 Act because the site lacked the necessary planning status at the tenancy’s inception and the letting comprised substantially more land than a mobile-home pitch.