The Beaches Management Ltd v D & J Furbear & Ors

A pitch fee review notice and the prescribed pitch fee review form may be combined in one document. The statutory scheme does not require duplication of information or separate sheets of paper, provided that the combined document contains the required material.

The prescribed form does not impose a statutory requirement for a director’s signature. An owner may authorise another person to sign it, and the absence of positive evidence of a lack of authority does not invalidate the form.

A separate service charge is not prohibited. It cannot displace the statutory index-linked presumption without a reasoned evaluation demonstrating a sufficiently weighty factor. Unresolved questions concerning the owner’s entitlement to receive contractual payments require evidence and may require remittal.

The appellant, the lessee and site licence holder of a residential mobile-home site, applied to increase the respondents’ pitch fees under Mobile Homes Act 1983. The First-tier Tribunal held that the combined pitch fee review notice and prescribed form were invalid, that the form lacked an authorised signature, and alternatively that a separate service-charge structure displaced the presumption of an increase by reference to the retail prices index.

The appellant appealed those conclusions. It contended that the statutory notice and form could lawfully be combined, that the form had been validly signed, and that the First-tier Tribunal had not adequately explained why the index-linked presumption was displaced. The Upper Tribunal also had to decide whether it could determine the applications itself or should remit them in light of unresolved questions about the appellant’s status and entitlement to receive the pitch fee.

1. Appeal allowed. The First-tier Tribunal’s decision was set aside in its entirety and the applications were remitted for redetermination by a differently constituted panel.

2. Paragraph 17 requires a written notice setting out the owner’s proposal and, for an increase, a document complying with paragraph 25A. Nothing in that scheme requires those documents to be physically separate. The combined document contained the information required for both the notice and the prescribed form. Treating it as invalid would require unnecessary duplication. A covering letter used as a notice, with a separate form, would also be permissible.

3. The form was valid despite being signed by a member of accounts staff. Mobile Homes Act 1983 does not require a signature by a director or officer. The prescribed form provides a signature space, but the owner may authorise a person of its choice to sign. In the absence of positive evidence that the signatory lacked authority, the First-tier Tribunal had no basis for finding the form invalid.

4. The First-tier Tribunal also failed to explain adequately why an index-linked increase was unreasonable. A separate contractual service charge is not prohibited and does not, without more, establish a weighty factor displacing the presumption in paragraph 20. Its conclusion depended on an unexplained assessment that the occupiers received insufficient value for the pitch fee, without analysis of the service-charge amounts or the contractual arrangements.

5. The Upper Tribunal could not substitute its own determination. Questions remained about whether the appellant was the statutory owner and was entitled to the benefit of the occupiers’ agreements and hence to receive the pitch fees. A later unappealed First-tier Tribunal decision potentially created issue estoppel for most respondents, although relevant facts may have changed. Those matters required evidence and directions in the First-tier Tribunal.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): Allowed the appellant’s appeal, set aside the First-tier Tribunal’s decision in its entirety, and remitted the pitch-fee applications to a differently constituted panel.
• First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber): On 20 October 2023, held that the review notice and form were invalid and, alternatively, that an index-linked increase was unreasonable.