Westminster City Council handed a completion notice, addressed only to the owner, to a receptionist at a newly developed office building. She scanned it and emailed it to the owner, UKI (Kingsway) Limited. The Supreme Court held that this was valid service: the council caused the notice to be received, and an electronic copy was enough.
The notice and the dispute
In January 2009 UKI began redeveloping 1 Kingsway to provide 130,000 sq ft of office space. In February 2012 the council told UKI’s agents that it intended to serve a completion notice specifying 1 June 2012 as the completion day, and asked them to identify the owner. The agents declined without instructions. Eco FM managed the building under a contract with UKI but had no authority to accept service.
Law Teacher writing support
Writing a law essay?
We choose a writer who is an expert in your area of law and qualified to at least the academic level you select. Most of our writers hold a master’s degree or PhD, have teaching experience, or both.
Send us your question and, if you wish, any marking criteria. We’ll write an essay to your instructions.
On 5 March 2012 the council delivered the notice by hand. It was addressed to the “Owner, 1 Kingsway, London WC2B 6AN” and specified 1 June 2012. An Eco receptionist received it, scanned it and emailed a copy to UKI, which received it no later than 12 March 2012. UKI’s agents appealed, purportedly on behalf of Eco, contending that service was invalid. The premises were later entered in the rating list at a rateable value of £2,750,000 with effect, as subsequently corrected, from 1 June 2012. A proposal to delete that entry was also appealed, and the appeals were consolidated.
It was common ground that, without a valid completion notice, the premises could not have been entered in the list, and that the council could have discovered UKI’s name and address by reasonable inquiry. The council therefore could not use the statutory fallback of affixing a notice where the owner cannot be found.
The rating scheme
Non-domestic rates depend on entry of a hereditament in the rating list. Section 46A of and Schedule 4A to the Local Government Finance Act 1988 allow a billing authority to serve a completion notice on the owner of a new building. Subject to appeal, the building is then deemed complete on the specified day, entered in the list and valued as if complete. The owner, or an occupier if the building becomes occupied, becomes liable for rates.
The authority must serve the notice where remaining work can reasonably be expected to be finished within three months, or where the building appears complete, unless the valuation officer directs otherwise. The notice must identify the building and the proposed completion day. For an unfinished building, that day must be no later than three months from and including the day of service. An appeal lies to the Valuation Tribunal on the ground that the building has not been, or cannot reasonably be expected to be, completed by the stated day. Time runs from receipt of the notice.
Paragraph 8 sets out methods of service, including registered post, recorded delivery and delivery to a company’s secretary or clerk. They are without prejudice to any other mode of service. Their purpose is to protect the authority against the risk of non-delivery, not to exclude actual receipt by another route.
The courts below
The Valuation Tribunal allowed UKI’s appeal. It held that the owner had not received the actual notice and was entitled to the original unless willing to accept electronic service. The Upper Tribunal reversed that decision. The Deputy President considered that the notice had reached the person who needed it and had been acted on by an appeal. The receptionist had done what a responsible employee of the managing company would be expected to do, and an electronic copy that had in fact been received should not be treated differently.
The Court of Appeal restored the Valuation Tribunal’s result. Gloster LJ held that leaving the notice with a third party who was authorised neither to accept service for the owner nor to effect it for the council was not, in ordinary language, service on the owner by the authority. She emphasised the need for certainty in a taxing statute with a strict appeal timetable, and did not regard earlier comments on indirect service as generally applicable. She left the electronic issue undecided.
Causing the notice to be received
Lord Carnwath, with whom Lady Hale, Lord Kerr, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lord Kitchin agreed, held that service under the general law means causing the notice to be received. The billing authority must be identified as the body responsible for service, but the statute does not prescribe the mechanics. What is required is a sufficient causal connection between the authority’s actions and actual receipt of the notice.
The receptionist did not break that connection. Agency and statutory delegation were unnecessary concepts here. Given a hand-delivered notice addressed to the owner, she did what a responsible employee would reasonably be expected to do and passed it on. That was the natural consequence of the council’s actions. Causation does not require the intermediary to be under the council’s control: a neighbour who passed on a misdelivered notice could likewise complete service. Mere knowledge of the contents is not enough, but here the notice itself was received because of what the council did.
Authorities concerning solicitors who lacked authority to accept a particular notice were distinguishable. There was no evidence or expectation in those cases that the actual notice would be passed on. The receptionist’s role was mechanical. Uncertainty about the date of service did not invalidate this route. Some uncertainty is built into the legislation. An authority that needs precision can use a statutory method; if it uses another method, it bears the risk. The owner is protected because non-statutory service depends on actual receipt, and the appeal period also runs from receipt.
The emailed copy
The court found no good reason to distinguish an emailed scan from earlier decisions treating a complete, legible fax copy as good service where the result was the same as delivery of the paper document. Those decisions stood when the Electronic Communications Act 2000 was passed. That Act facilitates electronic communications. It does not restrict the existing law, and the fact that it overlaps with it in places does not show an intention to change it. Regulations allowing electronic billing for some rating notices, where an address has been notified, create a certain routine scheme. Their silence about completion notices does not prevent service under ordinary principles where the notice is actually received.
The council’s method was far from ideal, and the court endorsed the practical warning that authorities should normally use paragraph 8 unless confident that another method will work. On the facts, however, the notice was validly served.
Verdict: The Court unanimously allowed Westminster City Council’s appeal and restored the Upper Tribunal’s order. The completion notice was validly served when the owner received the scanned notice that the receptionist forwarded.
Source: UKI (Kingsway) Limited v Westminster City Council [2018] UKSC 67
