TC09667 - [2025] UKFTT 01254 (TC)

On 14 August 2020, a quote was first provided by Mr Melvin, on behalf of Len Lothian, to book a storage unit. The quote was for a person said to be Chelsea Kelly.

On 10 December 2020, a licence agreement was created in the name of Chelsea Kelly for unit B1022, for the period 10 December 2020 to 9 February 2021 (renewing automatically thereafter, unless at least 7 days’ notice was given by either party). The agreement was signed by Mr Melvin, but not by Chelsea Kelly. The unsigned agreement was later scanned into Len Lothian’s system in March 2022.

Len Lothian allowed goods to be stored in Unit B1022, and received regular payments against regular invoices.

The storage fee was paid in cash by a man. He would regularly access the unit and was known to staff and was captured on CCTV. They got to know he was called “Kami” as one day he had a discussion with a staff member about football. (We refer to him as Kami in this Decision, although that may not be his real or legal name.) They assumed he had Chelsea Kelly’s permission to access the unit as they assumed he had a key allowing him to open the padlock. Staff assumed Kami was associated with Ms Kelly: he was never asked for identification or proof of Chelsea Kelly’s permission to access the unit.