TC09626 - [2025] UKFTT 01067 (TC)

Fecha: 12-Jun-2025

The Property

The Property

11.

We were provided with extensive photographs, lay out plans and other documents and reproduce in the Appendix to this decision a layout of the ground floor of the Property. Ms Berrell also provided helpful evidence. In this decision we describe the main accommodation at the Property neutrally as “the Main House” and the secondary accommodation, again neutrally, as "the Annexe”. The Property, and particularly the Annexe, was the subject of alteration works after Completion but the description that follows and our decision are based on the Property as at Completion.

12.

The Property is a modern detached red brick three-bedroom house. At the front of the Property are hedges and a driveway with parking for several cars. Looking from the driveway the Main House is two stories high. On the left of the ground floor there is a large window and to the right a double-glazed porch. On the first floor of the Main House are two bedroom windows. To the right of the porch and attached to the Main House is the Annexe, an additional single storey structure with a flat roof and a single large window to the front which was previously a garage.

13.

The front door in the porch is a full-length double-glazed door with a letter box. Within the porch there are two further lockable double-glazed doors, this time both with frosted glass. The door straight ahead gives access to the Main House. The door to the right in the porch gives access to the Annexe.

14.

The rear garden is a conventional part paved rear garden with access from the rear hallway of the Property and at the side of the house.

15.

Excluding the rear hallway from these descriptions, the Main House comprises an open plan living and dining room, a kitchen, a conservatory, three bedrooms, and a bathroom. At the time of Completion the Annexe consisted of what was described as a studio room and which HMRC accepted was suitable as a living and bedroom. The studio room has a window overlooking the front driveway. The Annexe also includes a toilet and shower room and a room variously described as a utility room and kitchen, but which we will for convenience but, again, neutrally call “the Utility” as that was the term adopted by the parties and to distinguish it from the kitchen in the Main House.

16.

The Utility is a small room at the rear of the Annexe with a window overlooking the garden to the rear with a door to the studio room and to the rear hallway. It has a work surface and a sink. In addition to the normal electric sockets, we find that there is the necessary dedicated high voltage wall connection for connecting an electric cooker. There was no mechanical ventilation in the Utility as might be used for cooking.

17.

The rear hallway was a significant issue in this appeal and so requires a detailed description. The hallway is a relatively narrow corridor at the rear of the house situated between the kitchen of the Main House and the Utility in the Annexe with one door from each of those rooms and a door out to the rear garden. Neither party suggested that the hallway had any particular features or usefulness (for example for storage or for siting washing machines) except as a means of access either to the other part of the Property or the garden and we will take it as such. The doors in the hallway are as follows:

(1)

The door between the Utility and the hallway is a wooden door with a bolt on the Utility side, that is lockable from the Utility side but not the hallway side;

(2)

The door between the kitchen and the hallway is a wooden door with six panes of glass in the top half with a Chubb style lock, lockable with a key from either side. The bottom four panes of glass are of coloured frosted glass. HMRC accepted that these glass panels were opaque. The top two glass panels, broadly at head height, were of clear glass but with glazing film applied to them. HMRC argued these were not opaque and would allow anyone in the hallway to see into the kitchen. The Appellants disagreed and argued that the frosting amounted to the same commonly seen on bathroom windows. We find that overall, whilst there was some loss of privacy it was limited; and

(3)

The door from the hallway to the garden is double glazed and lockable.

18.

Other features of the Property at the time of Completion are:

(1)

It was marketed as a “three/four bed home” and the particulars set out:

“To the side, the garage has been converted to provide a highly useful ground floor room. Currently laid out as a fourth bedroom with en-suite shower room, this space has its own access from the front porch and leads to a utility room at the rear. This could easily be utilised as a self-contained space for family requiring privacy”

(2)

At the time of Completion the Annexe had electric heaters.

(3)

The Annexe had running water. There is a stop tap outside the Property but the evidence was unclear as to whether there was one in the Annexe and Ms Burrell was also unclear. We find based on the photographic evidence that there was a stop tap in both the Main House and the Annexe;

(4)

The Annexe relied upon the boiler in the Main House for hot water.

(5)

The Main House and the Annexe are not listed separately for council tax purposes.

(6)

The Main House and the Annexe do have separate postal addresses.

(7)

The Main House and the Annexe do not have separate meters for utilities purposes

(8)

There was evidence that there was a separate fuse box in the Annexe at the time of Completion and we accept that evidence.

19.

In April 2022 the Appellants made a planning application to make alterations to the Property and particularly the layout of the Annexe, to enable it to be suitable for occupation by Ms Burrell’s mother who was confined to a wheelchair. HMRC highlighted a comment in the planning officer’s notes:

“The proposed annex would be internally linked to the host dwelling and with the access to it solely via the existing front entrance would ensure it remains ancillary to the host dwelling...” (emphasis added)

20.

The planning consent then then imposed a condition:

“The annex hereby permitted shall not be used or occupied for any purposes other than as ancillary to the residential use of the property on the site…”(emphasis added)