DHUGAL CLARK v Manchester City Council
Decision date: 27 March 2015
Neutral citation: [2015] UKUT 129 (LC)
Overall AI summary confidence: medium
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: medium
This appeal concerned an owner’s application to vary an HMO licence to permit a sixth occupant after adding an upper sleeping platform with limited headroom. The Upper Tribunal found the First-tier Tribunal had treated the matter as a review rather than the rehearing required by Schedule 5 paragraph 34(2), allowed the appeal on that procedural ground and remitted the case for a full rehearing. The UT also held that a local authority may publish guidance identifying room sizes it will ordinarily regard as too small but that such guidance is not a statutory minimum and the tribunal must assess the suitability of the whole house.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: medium
The binding decision is that an appeal under Schedule 5 paragraph 34(2) is a rehearing obliging the tribunal to make its own assessment rather than merely reviewing the local authority’s decision; while the tribunal may give weight to the authority’s guidance, local minimum space standards in guidance have no independent statutory force and must not fetter the tribunal’s discretion when assessing the suitability of the whole property.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The tribunal may permissibly have regard to a 6.5m2 figure (and to analogies with provisions such as in the Housing Act 1985) and to guidance about treating space with restricted headroom as reduced usable space, but such points are illustrative and do not bind the tribunal where overall suitability of the house may justify exceptions.