[2024] UKUT 140 (LC)

The main issue in this appeal is whether the respondent, Mr Mahmoud Abdallah, breached the terms of a licence granted to him by the appellant local housing authority, Newcastle City Council, under section 88 of the Housing Act 2004, when he failed to provide information in response to a request sent to him by post but which he did not receive.

The licence permitted Mr Abdallah to manage premises at 29 Gillies Street in Newcastle and was granted subject to standard conditions requiring him to provide certain information “on demand”. The Council requested the relevant information by a letter sent by ordinary post addressed to Mr Abdallah at an address he no longer occupied. The key question in the appeal is whether that demand, which never came to Mr Abdallah’s attention, was nevertheless an effective demand for the purpose of the licence condition. If it was, Mr Abdallah’s failure to comply with the condition would have been an offence contrary to section 95(2)(b), Housing Act 2004 Act (“the 2004 Act”), unless he could prove that he had a reasonable excuse for that failure.

The appeal is against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (the FTT), first promulgated on 9 August 2023 but reviewed and reissued with revised reasons on 10 September 2023. The FTT allowed Mr Abdallah’s appeal against a financial penalty of £654.66 imposed by the Council under section 249A, 2004 Act on account of the section 95 offence, which it was satisfied he had committed. The FTT found that the demand for information made by the Council had not been sent to Mr Abdallah’s last known address and was accordingly not a demand which Mr Abdallah was required to comply with.

The Council, which was represented at the hearing of the appeal by Miss Sarah Salmon, is not primarily interested in the recovery of the modest penalty in this case but is more exercised by the wider consequences for its administrative practices of the FTT’s apparent conclusion that requests for information made in furtherance of conditions attached to licences granted under the 2004 Act could not safely be sent through the ordinary post, rather than by registered post.

Mr Abdallah has made only short written comments about the difficulties he has experienced in the past in communicating with the Council but otherwise informed the Tribunal that he did not intend to participate in the appeal.