Gidvani, R (on the application of) v London Rent Assessment Panel [2007] EWHC 2525 (Admin)

Case No CO/3812/2006[2007] EWHC 2525 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Venue Royal Courts of JusticeDate Thursday, 18th October 2007
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
B e f o r e:
MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN
Between
THE QUEEN ON THE APPLICATION OF ARTI GIDVANIClaimantv
Between
LONDON RENT ASSESSMENT PANELDefendant
Computer-Aided Transcript of the Stenograph Notes ofWordWave International LimitedA Merrill Communications Company190 Fleet Street London EC4A 2AGTel No: 020 7404 1400 Fax No: 020 7831 8838(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
The Applicant appeared in person for in person for The Respondent did not appear and was not represented
J U D G M E N T
[1]MR JUSTICE SULLIVAN: This is an appeal against a decision of a Rent Assessment Committee, on 9 December 2005, that the registered fair rent for premises 5A Mount Pleasant, Wembley, Middlesex should be £525.[2]The background is set out in the Committe's reasons for decision. The applicant had applied for registration of a fair rent of £650 per calendar month on 10 July 2005. However, on 18 August 2005, the rent officer registered a fair rent of £520. On 1 September, the applicant objected to that and so the matter went to the Rent Assessment Committee. From that very brief summary it will be seen that the Committee, in effect, upheld the rent officer's decision, but very slightly increased the figure from £520 per calendar month to £525 per calendar month.[3]The applicant, who appears in person, seeks to challenge the Committee's decision essentially on three grounds. First of all, she contends that the deductions made by the Committee for the condition of the property were not deductions that they were entitled to make, because the property is in good condition. That is what her surveyor says and she has photographs to prove it.[4]The difficulty with that submission is that this court is not an appeal court on the merits from the Rent Assessment Committee's decision. This court is here to see whether or not there is any error of law in the Committee's decision. The Committee inspected the property on 9 December 2005. It would only be if their conclusions about the condition of the property were manifestly unreasonable that this court, not having seen the property itself, could possibly intervene.[5]I have sought to explain the position to the applicant, but I fear that my explanations have not been sufficiently clear. She seems to be still under the impression that the court can entertain arguments about the merits of the claim, and that simply is not the case. That is not the function of this court. There cannot be any conceivable error of law in the Committee's deductions for the condition of the premises, they having looked at the premises.[6]Then it is said that there is an error of law in that the Committee deducted for scarcity, but that is entirely conventional under the statutory scheme. No error of law was disclosed in that. Perhaps the major point raised is that the Committee, it is said, failed to take account of the fact that in 1993 there was a registered rent of £110 per week.[7]It is fair to say that failure to take account of a material consideration would be potentially an error of law. However, there are two difficulties in the path of that submission. Although the claimant says that there was evidence before the Tribunal that there had been a registered rent of £110 per week in 1993, that is disputed by the Chairman of the Committee, Miss Seifert, who says in paragraph 5 of her witness statement:
"There was no documentary evidence before the Committee that the rent for the Appellant's property was ever registered in 1993. No copy of the rent register for a 1993 registration was in the documents provided to the Committee. During the hearing, the Appellant made reference to a fair rent of £110 being registered in 1993, but Mr Simon Jones, the tenant of the property in question, stated that he withdrew the application to register the rent in 1993. Furthermore, the papers relating to the rent registration for 2003 were blank under the heading 'Last registration dated'. In light of this, the Committee proceeded on the basis that the rent had not been registered in 1993. In any case, however, the Committee generally considers the more recent rent registrations to be of most relevance, and would therefore have considered a registration of rent in 1993, in circumstances where a more recent registration existed, to be of little relevance, if any, to proceedings."
There is an unresolved issue of fact as to whether there was adequate evidence in front of the Committee that the rent had indeed been registered, as opposed to there have having been a proposal that it should be registered at £110 per week in 1993. In a sense that dispute of fact is of less importance than the second point made by the Chair of the Committee. That is to say, if there was a subsequent rent registration, then obviously the Committee would take much more notice of that than a very much earlier rent registration many years before.[8]In the present case on the evidence in the Committee's reasons, there was such a subsequent registration. I read from the Committee's reasons for its decision:
"At the time of the application to the Rent Officer, the rent payable was £500 per calendar month. The rent of £500 per calendar month had been registered on 10 April 2003 following a determination by the Rent Officer, and was effective from the same date."
Thus, understandably the Committee's starting point would have been the registered rent as in April 2003.[9]The applicant complains about the manner in which that rent was registered, but the statutory scheme provides for determination. It provides for finality. If there is a determination by a rent officer followed by a registration of £500 per week in 2003, then the Committee is perfectly entitled to take that as its starting point.[10]It follows, therefore, that even if there had been evidence of £110 a week being registered in 1993, ie ten years before the 2003 registration, that would have been of little or no materiality to the eventual decision, for the reasons given by the Chair of the Committee. It follows that there was no failure to take account of a material consideration, and therefore there is no arguable error of law in the Committee's reasoning.[11]In the circumstances, it is not necessary for me to decide the issue as to whether it would be right to extend time to allow this statutory appeal to be made. There is a fairly strict timetable for making statutory appeals: a 28-day limit after the decision in December 2005, unless the court extends time. The court would have to be persuaded that there was good reason to extend time and, despite the claimant's allegations that she was given the wrong forms, and so forth, I am far from persuaded that there is a sufficient explanation in this case.[12]The application was initially made in a Part 8 claim form on 5 May 2006. It was agreed that that could then be transferred into an appeal notice, which was filed in September 2006. Even if one takes no account at all of the delay between May and September 2006 and simply looks at the date of the Part 8 claim form, that was very many months after the 28-day period following the decision. Although effectively the applicant is saying that everybody else is to blame rather than her, I simply do not accept that. I do not accept that the application was made in time, but in a sense that is academic because the applicant has not demonstrated any error of law in the Tribunal's decision.[13]For these reasons the appeal must be dismissed. Thank you very much. Thank you PSU for attending and helping with the claim.