[2023] UKUT 247 (LC)

The FTT dealt with Mr Young’s application in its decision issued on 16 January 2023, in which it said this (references to the Respondent are to the appellant in this appeal and vice versa):

“[4] In the week before the hearing the Respondent’s application to postpone the hearing had been considered and refused by a procedural judge. Mr Young sought to renew that application and to ask the Tribunal to allow the documents which he contended his client had served on the Applicants on 23 December 2021 to be admitted in evidence. He asserted that his client had a reasonable excuse defence which should be considered by the Tribunal. Mr Patel, a Director of the Respondent company was present at the hearing.

[5] The Applicants’ application had been filed with the Tribunal on 03 May 2022 and Directions were issued on 20 June 2022 which set out a timetable for procedural matters to be undertaken by each party leading to a hearing the date of which would be arranged subsequently. Importantly, the date for hearing bundles to be filed was 22 August 2022 with which the Applicants complied but the Respondent did not.

6.

Mr Young said that the Respondent had written to the Tribunal (but not at that time also to the Applicants) on 7 September 2022 asking for an extension of time and said that his client had never received a reply to that request. He was unable to explain why his client had neither chased the Tribunal for a response nor filed a bundle in accordance with the Directions. It is noted that the request for an extension was made significantly after the date for filing had already passed.

7.

Ultimately, the Respondent served some documents on the Applicant’s representative on 23 December 2022 which was after the Applicant’s representative had closed for the Christmas holidays. As a result, the documents were not seen by the Applicants’ representative until 04 January 2023 and had not been seen by the Tribunal at all because, contrary to the Respondent’s assertion that they had been served, they had not been received by the Tribunal.

8.

The Respondent’s representative wished the Tribunal to consider both a skeleton argument and a ‘supplement’ witness statement. The Tribunal declined to admit these documents as they had not been served on the Applicants in sufficient time to allow them to respond.

9.

The Tribunal maintains the position that the Respondent had failed to comply with the Tribunal’s Directions, had failed to respond to the application in any meaningful way and was therefore effectively precluded from taking an active part in the hearing. The Tribunal heard the Respondent’s representative’s submissions described as being ‘for relief of sanctions’ but declined to postpone the hearing. No plausible reason for the Respondent’s failure to comply with the Directions or tardiness was mooted and prejudice would be suffered by the Applicants if the case was further postponed.”

The FTT then explained that it accepted the respondents’ evidence and was satisfied that an offence had been committed and that it had jurisdiction to make a rent repayment order, which it did in the full amount requested by the respondents.

The appellant’s ground of appeal is that the FTT erred in debarring it from taking part in the hearing and by refusing its application to rely on its evidence out of time.