Birmingham City Council v Drew Bravington

Local Government Act 1972 section 233 applies where a local authority serves a notice which an enactment requires or authorises. Its scope does not depend on whether the authority is acting in a public-law capacity. The statutory exceptions remain applicable.

A notice is left at a person’s proper address if it is left by a method which a reasonable person seeking to bring it to the addressee’s attention would use. Handing it to the addressee’s partner inside the property satisfied that test. Compliance with section 233 effects valid service even where the addressee did not in fact receive or see the notice.

The Council sought possession of its secure tenant’s flat under the absolute anti-social behaviour ground in Housing Act 1985 section 84A. It relied on convictions for offences committed in the locality and purported to serve the required notice under section 83ZA by giving it at the flat to the tenant’s partner.

The tenant said that he had not seen the notice. District Judge Chloë Phillips gave summary judgment for him and dismissed the possession claim. His Honour Judge Boora dismissed the Council’s appeal. The Council appealed again, raising whether Local Government Act 1972 section 233 governed service of a section 83ZA notice and, if so, whether service had been effective despite the tenant’s alleged non-receipt.

1. Appeal allowed. The Council’s appeal was allowed, the tenant’s summary-judgment application was dismissed, and the court declared that the notice had been duly served.

2. Section 233 of the Local Government Act 1972 applies to any notice which a local authority is required or authorised by or under an enactment to serve, subject to its express exclusions. A notice under Housing Act 1985 section 83ZA meets that description. Nothing in section 233 confines it to acts performed by an authority in a public-law capacity or qua local authority. Such a limitation would create uncertainty and is not supported by the structure or history of the relevant local-government provisions.

3. Enfield London Borough Council v Devonish, (1997) 29 HLR 691, concerned a common-law notice to quit rather than a notice required or authorised by enactment. It therefore did not support a capacity-based limitation. The contrary comments in London Borough of Southwark v Akhtar, [2017] UKUT 150 (LC), were obiter and non-binding.

4. For section 233(2), a document is left at the proper address when it is left there in a manner a reasonable person intending to bring it to the addressee’s attention would adopt. That approach, drawn from Lord Newborough v Jones, [1975] 1 Ch 90, applies equally to sections 231 and 233. Giving the letter to a person inside the flat who identified herself as the tenant’s partner and accepted it satisfied the test. The court rejected the contrary implication of R v Bromley London Borough Council, ex p Sievers, (1980) P&CR 294.

5. Section 233 provides modes of service which are effective without proof of actual receipt. Its purpose is to allocate the risk of failed communication and avoid factual disputes about whether a document reached the intended recipient. The court followed Rushmoor Borough Council v Reynolds, (1991) 23 HLR 495, and drew support from the analogous service provisions considered in Chiswell, Galinski and Blunden. The tenant’s alleged lack of awareness of the notice was therefore irrelevant.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) In [2023] EWCA Civ 308, allowed the Council’s appeal, dismissed the tenant’s summary-judgment application and declared the notice duly served.
• County Court at Birmingham, His Honour Judge Boora On 4 February 2022, dismissed the Council’s appeal from the district judge.
• County Court at Birmingham, District Judge Chloë Phillips On 8 July 2021, granted the tenant summary judgment and dismissed the Council’s possession claim.