[2025] UKUT 122 (LC)

The identity of the landlord was addressed by the FTT in its 2023 decision as a preliminary matter which was not in issue between the parties. It is clear from the discussion in the 2023 decision that Mt Campbell’s wanted to have the application against Ms Sanders struck out, and that the tenants agreed that he was the landlord. They produced copies of their tenancy agreements naming him as landlord, signed by him, and bank statements showing that they paid their rent to him. This was a matter dealt with at the start of the hearing and was a matter on which the parties were agreed.

In its 2024 reviewed decision the FTT explained that Mr Campbell had produced at the review hearing counterpart copies of some of the tenants’ tenancy agreements, bearing the same signatures as the original, but with the landlord’s name stated to be Fixbrook Consultancy Limited. He also produced some Deposit Protection Certificates on which the landlord was stated to be Fixbrook Consultancy Limited. He argued that that company was the landlord and that he was not. The FTT said that it was not going to revisit the identity of the landlord when it had been told by Mr Campbell at the first hearing that he was the landlord and that he had failed to challenge the tenants’ evidence that he was the landlord.

At the hearing of the appeal Mr Campbell said that he written statement to the FTT that he was the landlord (paragraph 10 above) was a mistake. He said that his objective was to get the application against Ms Sanders struck out and therefore needed an unambiguous statement. He claimed that he shared on screen at the first (video) hearing the documents naming Fixbrook Consultancy Limited. He claimed that the tenancy agreements in the bundle, naming him as landlord, had had his name as landlord filled in by the tenants after he had signed the agreements in blank. However, he agreed at the appeal hearing that he was Ms Villaescusa’s landlord.

Permission to appeal on this ground was granted on the basis that there was some confusion at the first hearing about the identity of the landlord, and that in light of the FTT’s acknowledgement that Mr Campbell was pressed for time at the original hearing it was arguable that when the point was developed at the second hearing the FTT had already made up its mind so that the 2024 reviewed decision was itself unfair. It is clear to me that that was not the case. It is important to note that the discussion of the identity of the landlord took place at the start of the original hearing, before there was any time pressure. It was a point on which the parties were agreed and the FTT agreed with the parties; it was an uncontroversial point on which Mr Campbell’s written statement, his oral evidence, the tenants’ evidence and the tenants’ documents were consistent. As to Mr Campbell’s written statement, if it was his case at the original hearing that Fixbrook Consultancy Limited was the landlord he would have said so in that written statement and would have argued not only that the application against Ms Sanders should be struck out but also that the application against him should be struck out.

I do not accept that Mr Campbell shared on screen, at the original hearing, documents bearing the name of Fixbrook Consultancy Limited. The FTT stated that the documents he introduced afresh at that hearing were about his financial circumstances. Fixbrook Consultancy Limited was not part of the discussion at the original hearing, and the company was first referred to in Mr Campbell’s grounds of appeal after the original hearing. In those grounds he referred to the counterpart agreements and said that they “will be presented should the Appeal be granted”; there was no suggestion that the FTT had seen them already.

On that basis it was correct for the FTT to refuse to revisit the identity of the landlord. It had indeed made up its mind, but on the basis of a point that was uncontroversial at the original hearing and where Mr Campbell had made it clear in writing and orally that he was the landlord at a time when there is not suggestion that he was being hurried along. There is no basis on which the FTT’s repetition in its 2024 reviewed decision of its finding that he was the landlord can be said to have been unfair.