TC09585 - [2025] UKFTT 00867 (TC)

Before setting out our findings of fact for the purposes of this decision, we need briefly to describe our impressions of the three witnesses.

We considered the Appellant on a couple of occasions to be a little too anxious to advance his case by:

As regards paragraph 54(1) above, the Appellant asserted at the hearing that he had chosen to have a kitchen and bathroom fitted at 8 Wigshaw Lane for his own use and not for the purposes of making the Property more saleable despite the clear statement in the third paragraph of his email to Officer Weir of 1 September 2017 to the effect that he had carried out those works only after making the decision to sell the Property and in order to make the Property more saleable – see paragraph 46 above.

As regards paragraph 54(2) above, the Appellant said in his witness statement in relation to each of 10 Woodhouse Close and 8 Wigshaw Lane that “the only thing stopping him from living in” the relevant Property as his home was his caring responsibilities whereas it was clear from the rest of his evidence that, in each case, there were other reasons why he had not been able to live in the relevant Property as his home.

Whilst the above matters inevitably affected our confidence in the Appellant, we are inclined not to be too hard on him in relation to them.

As regards the former, it is clear from the second paragraph in the email to Officer Weir set out in paragraph 46 above that, regardless of whether the Appellant wished to live in 8 Wigshaw Lane or simply to dispose of 8 Wigshaw Lane at a profit, the existing kitchen and bathroom at the Property needed to be removed in any event in order to carry out the necessary remedial works to the Property. It may thus be the case that, where, in the third paragraph of that email, the Appellant said that he had decided to have the kitchen and bathroom fitted in order to make the Property more saleable, he was doing no more than saying that, once he had decided to sell the Property as a result of the dispute with his next–door neighbour, he could have left the Property without any kitchen or bathroom but decided that it would be more marketable if he didn’t do that.

As regards the latter, it is possible to construe the relevant statements in the Appellant’s witness statement as saying no more than that the relevant Property would have been the Appellant’s only or main residence were it not for the fact that he was required to reside in his parent’s home in order to care for his father.

Despite these minor infelicities, looking at the Appellant’s evidence as a whole, we were satisfied that the Appellant was generally an honest and credible witness and were inclined to accept most of his evidence at face value.

We considered Mrs Campbell to be honest and truthful and a reliable and compelling witness.

The same was true of Officer Weir although, as we have already noted, his evidence was of limited relevance to the issue which we are presently addressing.