Case No. UKUT-16-(LC)-UTLC-Case-Numbers:-LC-2022-140

, which is a type referred to on the site as the “Hartford Houseboat”.130.The Tribunal did not see any virtue in considering whether it could be moved as a whole. …[T]he Willerby caravan is clearly identifiable; it is not fixed to the float and can be moved on and off. …131.To provide the Property with a particular nomenclature, such as the ‘Hartford Houseboat’ does not alter what it is, namely, a caravan on a float.”22.The FTT’s decision was prefaced by a summary at paragraph 1; in paragraph 1 of the original decision of 25 November 2021 the FTT stated: “The Applicant’s property is a caravan on a float.”23.In response to an application for permission to appeal the FTT, in its decision of 13 January 2022, revised the summary at paragraph 1 and paragraphs 129-131 so as to delete the words “caravan on a float” (where underlined above) and substitute the words: “caravan as defined in section 29 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960”.24.Thus paragraph 129 reads “the Property is a caravan as defined in section 29 of the Caravan Sites and Control of Development Act 1960”. Yet the term “Property” was still defined by paragraph 14 as meaning the caravan and float together, so it is difficult to see what is being said. As the appellant now says, if the statutory caravan that the FTT found is the whole houseboat, then the mobility test is not passed.25.In response to a further application for permission to appeal the FTT granted permission to appeal on this issue; it commented in its grant of permission that “The Tribunal views the float as the equivalent of the concrete base in respect of other Park Homes.” The appellant says that it is not permissible for the FTT to add to its reasoning in that way in a permission decision.26.In the face of the confusion generated by the FTT’s decision in its two versions I examine the first question afresh.The first question re-examined27.The question in this case is not, as the FTT put it, whether Ms Jaffe’s property is a statutory caravan. Her property taken as a whole is a houseboat, comprising a caravan on a float. Taken as a whole, her property is not a caravan because it fails the mobility test, as the appellant says; it cannot be towed (because the caravan has wheels but the float does not), and it was agreed between the parties’ expert witnesses before the FTT that it cannot safely be moved as a whole. Mr Cottle does not seek to argue that the houseboat as a whole is a statutory caravan.28.It is agreed between the parties that the Willerby caravan that forms part of the houseboat is by itself a statutory caravan.29.Therefore as a matter of fact Ms Jaffe lives in a structure which is a statutory caravan. I see no force in the argument that the caravan by itself has to be ignored and only the entire houseboat can be considered; that argument will re-surface with renewed energy in the second question in the context of planning permission, but there is no basis for it in the first question so far as this issue is concerned which is simply about what the agreement permits as a matter of fact. Ms Jaffe is living inside a statutory caravan. It happens to be on a float and to form part of a houseboat, but the fact remains that she lives in a Willerby caravan which is agreed to be a statutory caravan, and her agreement with the appellant entitles her to do so.30.Because I regard that issue as one of fact I have determined it without reference to authority. But the decision of the Court of Appeal in Howard v Charlton [2002] EWCA Civ 1086 is helpful by analogy; it was held that where an individual was entitled by agreement to station a statutory caravan on (dry) land, the attachment of a porch to the caravan did not take the structure outside that agreement even though the caravan with the porch attached could not be moved as a single unit and was too wide to be lawfully transported on the highway. So the statutory caravan did not lose its identity as such by having a (detachable) porch.31.The appellant then argues that if the Willerby caravan alone is the statutory caravan (as I have decided it is) Ms Jaffe is not entitled by the agreement to place it on land, but only to place it on the float, which in turn she is allowed to place on land (including the water that covers the land).32.I do not accept that argument. It is not in dispute that “land” in the statute includes land covered by water (FTT decision paragraph 105). I do not agree that a structure is not “on land” merely because it is placed there with another physical structure between it and the surface of the earth or of the water covering the earth. Hence the obvious relevance of the FTT’s comment (which I take as an explanatory comment which did not exceed the FTT’s powers) about a concrete base; many caravans on dry land have a base, and that does not mean they are not placed on the land. I fail to see that the presence of a float between the caravan and the water means that the caravan is not on land (in the legal sense that includes land covered by water). Ms Jaffe has no permission to put the caravan alone on the water (whereupon it would sink), nor does she have permission to place it on dry land. She does not have to show that she has permission to do either of those things. If she had permission to place it on land on a concrete or brick base (but not to place it on the bare earth) there would be no doubt that she had permission to station it on land, and the float makes no more legal difference than does any other base or support.33.I have therefore reached the same conclusion as did the FTT: the answer to the first question is that Ms Jaffe’s agreement with the appellant entitles her to station her statutory caravan on land. It is obvious to me that the FTT likewise, in its original and revised decisions, meant to say that the Willerby caravan was the statutory caravan, despite the confusion caused by its own definition of its term “Property” in paragraph 14 and by its imprecise formulation of the question before it in its paragraph 7. The appeal fails so far as the first question is concerned because the answer I have given is the same as the FTT’s albeit reached by what I hope is a clearer path.34.So I move on to the second question.