[2024] UKUT 180 (LC)

This is an appeal from a decision of the First-tier Tribunal (“the FTT”) that the appellant in late 2022/early 2023 failed to follow a valid procedure in order to raise the pitch fee in relation to 12 mobile home pitches at Beechfield Park, Chichester, and alternatively that if the procedure was correct that it was not reasonable for the pitch fee to be changed.

Beechfield Park is a residential mobile home site and it is not in dispute that the Mobile Homes Act 1983 applies to the agreements under which the occupiers live there. They are protected by the security of tenure provisions of the 1983 Act, and their pitch fee can only be changed if the procedure prescribed in the 1983 Act and in regulations made under it is followed.

The appellant, The Beaches Management Limited, holds a lease of Beechfield Park, granted in 2016, to expire in 2067. The respondents are the occupiers of mobile homes on 12 pitches at Beechfield Park.

The appellant was represented by Mr David Sunderland, and the respondents, with the exception of Mr Simon, Mr Mayes-Jones and the estate of Mrs Rose, were represented by Ms Caroline March. I am grateful to them both. The respondents whom she did not represent did not participate in the appeal.