Council win valuation dispute with right-to-buy worker
Mummery, Latham and Carnwath LJJ
Right to buy — Relevant date for valuation — Two notices served 10 years apart — Whether first claim extant — Whether correct valuation date that of first of second notice — Appeal dismissed
A Surrey council worker may have to pay an extra £65,000 to buy his council-owned home after losing an appeal over the property’s value.
George Copping, who has worked as Surrey council’s canal ranger for more than 20 years, served notices in both 1991 and 2001 exercising the right to buy his home at The Willows, in Frimley Road, Ashvale, Aldershot, Hampshire.
Right to buy — Relevant date for valuation — Two notices served 10 years apart — Whether first claim extant — Whether correct valuation date that of first of second notice — Appeal dismissed
A Surrey council worker may have to pay an extra £65,000 to buy his council-owned home after losing an appeal over the property’s value.
George Copping, who has worked as Surrey council’s canal ranger for more than 20 years, served notices in both 1991 and 2001 exercising the right to buy his home at The Willows, in Frimley Road, Ashvale, Aldershot, Hampshire.
Three appeal judges have now upheld a High Court ruling that the house should be valued as at the date of the later notice, effectively increasing the property’s value from £75,000 to £140,000.
Latham LJ said that allowing a tenant to “wait for as long as he wished before resurrecting his claim” could cause “considerable prejudice to a public authority and loss to the local taxpayers”.
With regard to right-to-buy procedure in the Housing Act 1985, he added: “Bearing in mind that the Act prescribes strict time limits if a claim is either accepted or established, such a result would appear to be wholly contrary to the way in which parliament intended this procedure to work.”
The council had rejected the 1991 notice on the ground that Copping was not a secure tenant since he lived with his wife, Sandra, at The Willows in order to carry out his employment duties.
They also rejected the second notice on the same ground but, in 2003, a county court judge upheld Copping’s right to buy.
In the High Court, Nelson J held that because Copping had taken no action after the date upon which the 1991 notice was rejected until he issued the second notice, he had impliedly “abandoned” the earlier claim.
Copping and another v Surrey County Council Court of Appeal (Mummery, Latham and Carnwath LJJ) 21 December 2005.
Jerome Wilcox (instructed by Campbell Courtney & Cooney, of Frimley) appeared for the appellants; Claire Andrews (instructed by the legal department of Surrey County Council) appeared for the respondents.
References: EGi Legal News 21/12/05
