[2024] UKUT 180 (LC)

Fecha: 19-Jun-2024

The legal and factual background

The legal and factual background

The Mobile Homes act 1983, the owner and the occupier

Section 1 of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 says:

“(1)

This Act applies to any agreement under which a person (“the occupier”) is entitled–

(a)

to station a mobile home on land forming part of a protected site; and

(b)

to occupy the mobile home as his only or main residence.”

A “protected site” is defined by section 1(2) of the Caravan Sites Act 1968, and it is agreed that Beechfield Park is a protected site. A protected site has to be licensed, and the appellant holds the site licence for Beechfield Park. Its lease of the site, from 1 January 2016 to 1 November 2067, was granted by Silver Lakes Property Investments Limited. The lease states that the term is granted subject to a number of leases of individual pitches to Silk Tree Properties Limited, Silver Lakes Mobile Homes Limited, Harquail Properties Limited and Sussex Mobile Homes Limited, described as the “occupational leases”, and those leases are noted on the charges register of the appellant’s registered title and appear to be for terms of 20 or 40 years,

The respondents all have agreements entitling them to live in a mobile home on the site; ten of them have agreements with Wyldecrest Parks Management Limited (numbers 1, 2, 12, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24), all granted in 2019 or later. The occupiers of pitches 8 and 27 have agreements with Harquail Homes Limited. Of those agreements a sample was provided in the appeal bundle, and hard copies of the rest at the hearing; it is not in dispute that all the agreements made provision for the payment not only of a pitch fee but also of a variable service charge.

Obviously an agreement entitling someone to live on land in a mobile home can only be made by a person with the right to possession of that land. The Mobile Homes Act defines an “owner” in section 5:

“owner, in relation to a protected site, means the person who, by virtue of an estate or interest held by him, is entitled to possession of the site or would be so entitled but for the rights of any persons to station mobile homes on land forming part of the site”

and the parties to the agreements regulated by the 1983 Act are referred to as the “owner” and the “occupier” throughout. The Act recognises that land can change hands and makes provision in section 3 for the benefit and burden of such agreements to pass to successors in title of the owner, or to persons who claim “through or under” the owner, such as a lessee.

The appellant’s case in the FTT and on appeal is that it is the “owner” of Beechfield Park as defined in section 5, by virtue of its lease of the site and has been since the grant of that lease in 2016.