UKI (Kingsway) Limited v Westminster City Council

Where legislation permits methods of serving a notice beyond specified statutory methods, service ordinarily requires actual receipt by the intended recipient and a sufficient causal connection between the server’s actions and that receipt. Direct delivery or the intervention of an authorised agent is unnecessary. A third party’s mechanical transmission of the notice may suffice where receipt is the natural consequence of the server’s actions.

A complete and legible electronic copy may constitute the notice for this purpose. Legislation facilitating electronic communications does not, without express words or necessary implication, restrict pre-existing common law methods of service. A person choosing a non-statutory method bears the risk of proving effective receipt and its date.

Westminster City Council delivered a non-domestic rating completion notice addressed to the owner of 1 Kingsway to a receptionist employed by the building manager. The receptionist lacked authority to accept service but scanned and emailed the notice to the owner, UKI, which received it and appealed.

The Valuation Tribunal held the service invalid. The Upper Tribunal reversed that decision, reported at [2015] RA 433. The Court of Appeal restored the Valuation Tribunal’s decision in [2017] EWCA Civ 430; [2017] PTSR 1606.

The Supreme Court had to decide whether the notice was validly served despite passing through an unauthorised third party and reaching UKI only as an electronic copy.

1. Appeal allowed. Lord Carnwath, with whom Lady Hale, Lord Kerr, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lord Kitchin agreed, held that the completion notice was validly served. The order of the Upper Tribunal was restored.

2. The specified methods in paragraph 8 of Schedule 4A to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 were not exhaustive. Their purpose was to give a billing authority reliable methods of service which could protect it from the consequences of non-delivery. An authority using another method had to establish actual receipt and bore the associated risks, including uncertainty about the date of service.

3. For indirect service, the correct inquiry was whether the authority caused the intended recipient to receive the notice. This required actual receipt of the notice and a sufficient causal connection between the authority’s action and that receipt. Control, formal agency and statutory delegation were unnecessary. The receptionist’s act of forwarding a notice addressed to the owner was the natural consequence of the council’s delivery and was the mechanical act reasonably expected of a responsible employee in that position.

4. The rule did not extend to every case in which a recipient merely learned the notice’s contents. The actual notice had to be received. Cases concerning delivery to solicitors without authority to accept service were distinguishable where there was no evidence or reasonable expectation that the solicitor would forward the notice.

5. The need for certainty about the date of service did not alter the conclusion. Some uncertainty was inherent because neither the available methods nor their corresponding service dates were exhaustively defined. An authority could minimise that risk by selecting a prescribed method. The owner was protected because non-statutory service depended on actual receipt and the appeal period also ran from receipt.

6. A complete and legible copy received electronically could amount to valid service. The established reasoning permitting fax transmission applied equally to email. The Electronic Communications Act 2000 facilitated electronic communications but contained nothing expressly or impliedly restricting the pre-existing general law. The absence of regulations specifically authorising electronic completion notices therefore did not invalidate the service achieved on these facts.

1. United Kingdom Supreme Court: Allowed the council’s appeal in [2018] UKSC 67, set aside the Court of Appeal’s decision and restored the Upper Tribunal’s order.

2. Court of Appeal: In [2017] EWCA Civ 430; [2017] PTSR 1606, reinstated the Valuation Tribunal’s decision that service was invalid.

3. Upper Tribunal: In [2015] RA 433, reversed the Valuation Tribunal and held that the notice had been served.

4. Valuation Tribunal: Allowed the consolidated appeals against the completion notice and the building’s inclusion in the rating list.