[2023] UKUT 190 (LC)

How should the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (the FTT) deal with an appeal against a civil financial penalty where the appeal is lodged long after the penalty was imposed and where the appellant’s explanation for the apparent delay is that he did not receive the notice?

That is the question which arises in this appeal against a decision of the FTT given on 25 October 2022 by which it struck out an appeal by Mr Ipolotas Naujokas against financial penalties sought to be imposed on him by Fenland District Council under section 249A, Housing Act 2004. Final penalty notices had been sent to his home address but his appeal was lodged 25 months after the date they should have been delivered, long after the 28 days allowed by rule 27(2) Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (Property Chamber) Rules 2013 (“the Rules”).

Mr Naujokas’s explanation was given to the FTT by his counsel, Dr Van Dellen, who also represented him at the hearing of the appeal. In written representations he explained that it was his client’s case that the final notices had never arrived, or at least had never reached him. The FTT was unimpressed by that explanation, and by the form in which it was given, and proceeded to strike the appeal out.

Permission to appeal was subsequently given by this Tribunal. The respondent, Fenland District Council (the Council), chose not to attend the hearing at which Mr Naujokas was represented by Dr Van Dellen.