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Under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS), a range of measures are available to a local authority. One of those measures is that they may serve an improvement notice seeking specified works to be carried out by the recipient of the notice. A person who receives an improvement notice may appeal it.
In Wood v Kingston Upon Hull City Council [2017] EWCA Civ 364, there were two flats in a building. Mr Wood owned the first-floor flat, and Ms Peacock owned the ground floor.
The local authority decided that the fire resistance between the two flats was inadequate. They determined this was a category two hazard and served an improvement notice on both Mr Wood and Ms Peacock. Both notices offered two alternative schemes of work:
At a first appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, Mr Wood was unsuccessful, but was successful at a further appeal to the Upper Tribunal.
The Upper Tribunal (UT) decided that the first scheme of works (new fire-resistant ceiling in ground floor flat) should not have been served on Mr Wood as the works would have been entirely in the ground floor flat.
The UT held that the second proposal (fire-resistant layer) was considerably more expensive, and it was irrational for the local authority to propose it.
As a result, the UT quashed the notice served on Mr Wood and amended the notice served on Ms Peacock of the ground floor flat to only include the first proposal of works (new ceiling).
The local authority appealed to the Court of Appeal, saying they had been correct to serve both notices with the alternative proposals.
Mr Wood further sought, in addition to the earlier appeal, that an improvement notice could not contain alternative proposals of works.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the local authority’s appeal, but Mr Wood’s argument that alternative proposals could not be included in an improvement notice was rejected.
Based on the evidence provided (which appeared to be limited), the Court of Appeal decided that the deficiency that required remedy (fire separation between the flats) was on the ground floor. As such, the improvement notice should have been served on Ms Peacock alone.
Regarding alternative proposals for work, the Court of Appeal held that there was nothing objectionable in principle in a notice specifying alternative schemes of work. In such a case, the recipient of the notice is free to choose which scheme of works to choose. Because failure to comply with an improvement notice has enforcement consequences for the recipient, getting service on the correct person matters in practice.