The Court considered whether it had jurisdiction to grant permission to appeal against a decision of the President of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) refusing permission to appeal to the UT against a decision of the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. Section 175 of the 2002 Act provided that a party to proceedings before a LVT may appeal to the UT from a decision of the valuation tribunal, but only with the permission of the valuation tribunal or the UT.
Held: A decision by the UT to refuse permission to appeal under section 175(2) of the 2002 Act was not listed as one of the excluded decisions under section 13(8) of the 2007 Act.
Sullivan LJ said: ‘In my judgment, it is plain from the Sinclair Gardens Investments case ([2004] EWHC 1910 (Admin)) that there was no right of appeal against a refusal by the Lands Tribunal of permission to appeal against an LVT’s decision. Applying the Lane v Esdaile principle, the Lands Tribunal’s decision to refuse permission to appeal was not a ‘decision’ for the purposes of Section 3(4) of the Lands Tribunal Act 1949, which then conferred a right of appeal to the Court of Appeal against the Lands Tribunal’s decisions.
That position is not affected by the fact that the Lands Tribunal is now the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) and the right of appeal against the decision of the Upper Tribunal is now conferred by Section 13(1) of the 2007 Act. It is understandable that the draftsman of the 2007 Act should have wished to make it clear beyond any doubt in a comprehensive statutory scheme dealing with appeals from the First-tier Tribunal to the Upper Tribunal that the Lane v Esdaile principle applies to refusals of permission to appeal under Section 11(4)(b). In effect what the applicant is seeking to do is to convert an express exclusion of a right to appeal against refusals of permission to appeal in Section 11 cases into an express provision of a new right of appeal against refusals of permission to appeal in Section 175 cases, thereby effectively overturning the decision in Sinclair Gardens Investments. In my judgment such an intention is not to be imputed to the draftsman of Section 13 of the 2007 Act. I accept the respondent’s submission that it was unnecessary to include a decision to refuse permission to appeal under Section 175(2) in the list of excluded decisions under Section 13(8) of the 2007 Act because the position, so far as appeals from the LVT to the Lands Tribunal was concerned, was governed by clear authority in the form of Sinclair Gardens, which had made it quite clear that there was no right of appeal against such decisions.’
Judges:
Sullivan, Lloyd LJJ
Citations:
[2012] EWCA Civ 1024
Links:
Statutes:
Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 175, The Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 11 13
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
At LVT – 19-22 Onslow Gardens – Kensington and Chelsea : London (Flats – Enfranchisement and New Leases) LVT 23-Sep-2011
Flats – Enfranchisement and New Leases . .
Cited – Sinclair Gardens Investments (Kensington) Ltd, Regina (on the Application of) v The Lands Tribunal CA 8-Nov-2005
The claimant appealed against a refusal of judicial review of a decision of the Lands Tribunal.
Held: A decision of the Lands Tribunal could only be judicially reviewed in exceptional cases where there was either a jurisdictional error or a . .
Cited by:
Cited – Sarfraz v Disclosure and Barring Service CA 22-May-2015
The claimant appealed against the refusal of the defendant to remove his name from the list of those barred from working with children. He had been a GP. Though not priosecuted for any criminal offence the Professional Conduct Committee had found . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 04 November 2022; Ref: scu.463278