- Bookmark
- Share
- CaseIQ
Manaquel Company Ltd v London Borough of Lambeth
Factual and Procedural Background
The appeal concerned whether the Appellant should have been awarded costs in tribunal proceedings arising from an improvement notice served by the Local Authority under the Housing Act 2004. [Para 26][Para 27][Para 28][Para 152]
The Appellant owned an estate of 96 flats, and after inspections the Local Authority served an improvement notice identifying category 1 and category 2 hazards and requiring remedial works. [Para 27][Para 120][Para 122][Para 125][Para 141][Para 142]
The FTT quashed the notice in its entirety and refused the Appellant’s costs application; the UT later held that the FTT had applied the wrong date test but still dismissed the costs appeal; the Appellant then appealed to the Court of Appeal. [Para 27][Para 28][Para 29][Para 30][Para 144][Para 152][Para 167][Para 169][Para 173][Para 195][Para 210][Para 211]
Legal Issues Presented
- Whether an appeal against an improvement notice under sch 1 para 10 of the Act must be assessed by reference to the date of service of the notice or the date of the appeal hearing. [Para 26][Para 28][Para 29][Para 87][Para 117][Para 213]
- Whether the UT erred in refusing to set aside the FTT’s refusal of costs after finding that the FTT had proceeded on the wrong legal basis. [Para 28][Para 29][Para 195][Para 210][Para 240][Para 252]
Arguments of the Parties
Appellant's Arguments
- The Appellant argued that Hussain should not be read across to improvement-notice appeals because Part 1 of the Act is in a different statutory context from licensing under Parts 2 and 3, and that the FTT should assess the notice by reference to the hearing date. [Para 216][Para 217][Para 218][Para 219]
- The Appellant also argued that later works could show that earlier hazards had been overstated and that, on the costs appeal, the UT should have treated the FTT’s substantive decision as fixed because Lambeth had not appealed it. [Para 229][Para 240][Para 246][Para 247]
Respondent's Arguments
- At the FTT hearing, the Local Authority did not challenge the hearing-date approach, accepted that the notice should not simply be confirmed, and suggested that the matter might be adjourned to allow an updated schedule of works. [Para 144][Para 145]
Table of Precedents Cited
| Precedent | Rule or Principle Cited For | Application by the Court |
|---|---|---|
| Hussain (Nasim) v Waltham Forest London Borough Council [2023] EWCA (Civ) 733, [2024] KB 154 | The “re-hearing” formula in the Act does not permit a full fresh assessment; the tribunal asks whether the authority’s decision was wrong when made. [Para 108][Para 109][Para 110][Para 115] | The Court held that Hussain controlled the date issue for improvement notices because the same statutory language appears in Part 1; the FTT therefore had to ask whether the Local Authority was wrong when it served the notice, not at the hearing date. [Para 222][Para 225][Para 226][Para 228][Para 230] |
| Willow Court Management Ltd v Mrs Ratna Alexander [2016] UKUT 290 (LC) | The leading authority on Rule 13(1)(b) costs: an objective test of unreasonable conduct, then discretion as to whether and on what terms to award costs. [Para 163][Para 164] | The FTT and UT treated Willow Court as the governing approach to the costs application, and the UT applied that framework when deciding whether to leave the FTT’s refusal of costs undisturbed. [Para 163][Para 165][Para 180][Para 210] |
| Lea v GP Ilfracombe Management Co Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 1241, [2025] 1 WLR 371 | Willow Court had recently been approved by the Court of Appeal. [Para 168] | The Deputy President noted Lea before applying Willow Court to the costs appeal. [Para 168] |
| Curd v Liverpool City Council [2024] UKUT 218 (LC) | The UT had previously expressed the view that the Hussain approach applied to appeals against improvement notices. [Para 172] | The Deputy President relied on Curd as consistent with his conclusion that the date issue in improvement-notice appeals was governed by Hussain. [Para 172][Para 173] |
| Wathen-Fayed v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government [2025] UKSC 32, [2025] 1 WLR 3693 | The presumption that the same words in an Act have the same meaning is rebuttable. [Para 219] | The Court acknowledged the principle but held that the Act’s repeated use of materially identical appeal language meant there was no basis for giving different meanings to the same formula in Part 1, Parts 2 and 3, and Part 4. [Para 220][Para 222][Para 223][Para 225] |
| R (PACCAR Inc) v Competition Appeal Tribunal [2023] UKSC 28, [2023] 1 WLR 2594 | Statutory interpretation turns on the meaning borne by the words in their particular context, informed by statutory purpose and scheme. [Para 220] | The Court used PACCAR to frame its interpretation of the Housing Act 2004 and to justify reading the appeal provisions as part of a single, coherent statutory scheme. [Para 220][Para 221][Para 222] |
| R v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, Ex p Spath Holme Ltd [2001] 2 AC 349 | The meaning of statutory words must be identified in their particular context. [Para 220] | The Court cited Spath Holme as part of the statutory-construction analysis supporting the conclusion that the same appeal wording should bear the same meaning throughout the Act. [Para 220][Para 221][Para 222] |
| R (Quintavalle) v Secretary of State for Health [2003] UKHL 13, [2003] 2 AC 687 | Statutory provisions should be read in the context of the statute as a whole. [Para 220] | The Court used Quintavalle to support reading the Act’s appeal provisions as a coherent whole rather than giving them different meanings in different Parts. [Para 220][Para 222][Para 225] |
| Bloomsbury International Ltd v Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [2011] UKSC 25, [2011] 1 WLR 1546 | The purpose and general scheme of an Act are central to construction. [Para 220] | The Court relied on Bloomsbury International to emphasize that the Act’s scheme required a consistent interpretation of the tribunal’s appellate powers across the relevant Parts. [Para 220][Para 222][Para 225] |
Court's Reasoning and Analysis
The Court began with the structure of the Housing Act 2004 and noted that Parliament repeatedly used materially identical wording for appeals across Parts 1 to 4: the appeal is by way of re-hearing, but may be determined having regard to matters of which the authority was unaware. [Para 221][Para 222]
On that basis, the Court held that there was no sensible basis for giving different meanings to the same appellate formula depending on whether the challenge was to an improvement notice, a licensing decision, or other local-authority enforcement action. [Para 222][Para 223][Para 224][Para 225]
The Court therefore treated Hussain as determinative and agreed that the FTT should ask whether the Local Authority was wrong to serve the notice when it did, not whether the notice was justified on later facts at the date of the hearing. [Para 226][Para 227][Para 228][Para 230]
The Court rejected the Appellant’s attempt to distinguish Hussain on the basis that improvement notices involve future risk, observing that Parliament could have chosen an up-to-date test but did not do so; later changes are instead addressed through the statutory powers to vary or revoke notices. [Para 229][Para 230]
The separate complaint about “special deference” to the Local Authority was treated as not truly arising on the facts, because the UT had decided only the date issue and not a different standard of review. [Para 232][Para 234]
On costs, the Court accepted that once the date issue was corrected, many of the criticisms of the Local Authority lost force because they were built on the mistaken premise that the authority had to justify the notice by reference to the later condition of the Estate. [Para 174][Para 179][Para 181]
Even so, the UT was entitled to decline to set aside the FTT’s costs ruling because it had a discretion under s. 12 TCEA 2007, could not properly remake the decision on the material available, and considered remittal unlikely to produce a materially different outcome. [Para 192][Para 195][Para 196][Para 197][Para 210]
The Court also held that the Local Authority was not barred by res judicata from relying on the corrected legal position in answer to the costs appeal, because the costs issue turned on unreasonable conduct, not simply on who won the substantive appeal. [Para 245][Para 247][Para 248][Para 249][Para 251]
Holding and Implications
APPEAL DISMISSED. The Court upheld the UT’s conclusion that the FTT should have applied the date-of-service approach, and it also upheld the decision to leave the FTT’s refusal of costs undisturbed. [Para 226][Para 228][Para 230][Para 252][Para 253]
The direct effect was that the Appellant obtained no costs order, and the decision confirms that the same appeal wording in the Housing Act 2004 is to be read consistently across the Act; no broader new precedent was set beyond that statutory-interpretation point. [Para 222][Para 225][Para 253]
Alert