Phillip Robling & Anor v Maurice Fred Doe
Decision date: 8 January 2024
Neutral citation: [2024] UKUT 11 (LC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
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: high
The Upper Tribunal allowed two appeals against First-tier Tribunal orders that had struck out applications for pitch fee determinations under the Mobile Homes Act 1983. The UT held the FTT erred in concluding from licence documents alone that the applicants could not establish they lived on the pitches as their only or main residence and that factual questions (including permission to occupy and protected-site status) must be decided at a hearing. The strike-out orders were set aside and the applications restored for further directions or hearing; no substantive findings on entitlement or protected-site status were made.
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: high
A tribunal should not strike out an application for lack of jurisdiction where the applicant’s factual account that they live on the pitch as their home with the owner’s permission has not been tested and might be accepted on the balance of probabilities; written licence terms alone (including an unsigned document) are not necessarily decisive because permission to occupy as a main residence can arise by conduct and requires factual findings at a hearing.
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 judgment suggests that longstanding occupation with payment of council tax and absence of owner protest can be evidence, on the balance of probabilities, of the owner’s permission to occupy. It also notes an appellate tribunal should not decide factual issues (such as whether a site is a protected site) that the First-tier Tribunal did not determine.