Rita Kakar v London Borough of Harrow

This is an appeal from a decision of the Valuation Tribunal for England (“the Tribunal”) dated 4 December 2024.

The Appellant is a resident of the London Borough of Harrow. The Respondent to the appeal is the London Borough of Harrow.

The Respondent indicated in an email sent to the Administrative Court Office on 17 March 2026 that it would not be attending the appeal hearing, but that it would like the Court to dismiss the appeal and uphold the Tribunal’s decision.

The relevant factual background may be summarised as follows.

The Appellant is liable to pay council tax for a property in South Harrow. She believed that the amount she had been charged by the council was wrong. In December 2023 she sent a written grievance about this. She raised two separate arguments:

On 5 February 2024 the council responded. It set out its “considered view” that her son, having been suspended from his course due to ill health, could not properly be regarded as a full time student within the council tax rules, “in the absence of any supporting documentation to the contrary”. It was “possible”, the email continued, that this meant that he was not a full time student between 13 October 2019 and 30 June 2023. It did not, however, make any findings about exactly when he was, or had ceased to be, a full time student. Nor did it make any decision on the carer status ground. Nor did it make any final recalculation of the council tax that had been charged. It asked for more information about the carer status ground.

On 27 August 2024, following the provision of information and further correspondence between the parties, the council made and communicated a decision to the effect that:

The 27 August 2024 decision meant that for some of the period the Appellant would be entitled to a 25% discount; for some of it she would be entitled to a 50% discount. Mr Bedford, for the Appellant, told me that this was the first time that the Respondent had conveyed a decision which dealt with both grounds of the Appellant’s grievance.

The Appellant remained dissatisfied, in particular because she considered that the council’s conclusion that her son had stopped being a qualifying full time student on 20 June 2021 was wrong. Her approach was to treat 27 August 2024 as the first date on which any decision had been made which could give rise to a right of appeal to the Tribunal. She therefore considered that she had two months to commence her appeal running from 27 August 2024.

Her appeal to the Tribunal was not, however, submitted until 28 October 2024.

On 13 November 2024, the Appellant provided, at the Tribunal’s invitation, a response to what is known as a “form A4”, i.e. a Tribunal form which allows an appellant to explain “why the appeal was not submitted within the time limit”. It consisted, for the most part, of legal submissions justifying the proposition that time did not start to run until 27 August 2024. It did however say, at paragraph 22, that the Appellant’s dependence on her son to assist her with the appeal had “amounted to a circumstance beyond her control for the purposes of reg.21(6)”, and also, at paragraph 25, that she had experienced stress as a result of various matters, which was also beyond her control.

On 4 December 2024, however, the Tribunal dismissed her appeal. It reasoned that time had in fact started to run on 5 February 2024. The appeal against the decision relating to the student status ground should, it said, have been lodged by 5 April 2024. The Appellant’s appeal was therefore some 6 months and 23 days late. No extension of time would be granted.

On 30 December 2024, the Appellant attempted to file a notice of appeal to this Court. That appeal notice was initially rejected on the basis that, when e-filing the appeal, the Appellant had failed to identify the Respondent properly.

Counsel tells me, and I accept, that the appeal notice that was uploaded and filed on 30 December 2024 clearly named the London Borough of Harrow as the Respondent. That was the billing authority and was therefore correct. A second appeal notice was sent and was rejected on 8 January 2025. A third appeal notice was accepted and issued on 10 January 2025. The deadline for the appeal had expired on 2 January 2025. That gives rise to a preliminary point, which is whether the appeal to this Court was brought in time.

Mr Bedford has referred me to the case of R (BLV) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1475 (Admin). That was a case in which certain practical difficulties had arisen with e-filing. Fordham J conducted a detailed analysis of the e-filing arrangements then in place, and treated that particular appeal as having been brought in time. The Respondent to this Appeal has seen the Appellant’s submissions about this point and has not sought to say that the appeal should be dismissed on the ground that the notice of appeal was late. There is no unfairness to the Respondent, in my view, in resolving the point without hearing further from the Respondent. There is a strong argument that the appeal to this Court was properly instituted, within the applicable time limit, when it was first received by the ACO on 30 December 2024. If that is right then the Court has wide case management powers available to it to enable justice to be done and for the appeal to proceed. I will proceed on the basis that the appeal was filed on the date of attempted filing (30 December 2024).

I now turn to the substance of the appeal.

The Tribunal’s jurisdiction to hear appeals against council tax decisions is set out in s.16 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which provides:

“(1)

A person may appeal to a valuation tribunal if he is aggrieved by—

(a)

any decision of a billing authority that a dwelling is a chargeable dwelling, or that he is liable to pay council tax in respect of such a dwelling; or

(b)

any calculation made by such an authority of an amount which he is liable to pay to the authority in respect of council tax.

...

(4)

No appeal may be made under subsection (1) above unless—

(a)

the aggrieved person serves a written notice under this subsection; and

(b)

one of the conditions mentioned in subsection (7) below is fulfilled.

(5)

A notice under subsection (4) above must be served on the billing authority concerned.

(6)

A notice under subsection (4) above must state the matter by which and the grounds on which the person is aggrieved.

(7)

The conditions are that—

(a)

the aggrieved person is notified in writing, by the authority on which he served the notice, that the authority believes the grievance is not well founded, but the person is still aggrieved;

(b)

the aggrieved person is notified in writing, by the authority on which he served the notice, that steps have been taken to deal with the grievance, but the person is still aggrieved;

(c)

the period of two months, beginning with the date of service of the aggrieved person's notice, has ended without his being notified under paragraph (a) or (b) above.

...

(8)

Where a notice under subsection (4) above is served on an authority, the authority shall—

(a)

consider the matter to which the notice relates;

(b)

include in any notification under subsection (7)(a) above the reasons for the belief concerned;

(c)

include in any notification under subsection (7)(b) above a statement of the steps taken.”

The time limit for such an appeal is set out at Regulation 21 of the Valuation Tribunal for England (Council Tax and Rating Appeals) (Procedure) Regulations 2009/2269 (“the 2009 Regulations”):

“(1)

Paragraphs (2) to (5) are subject to paragraph (6).

(2)

The VTE shall dismiss an appeal by a person in relation to whom the condition mentioned in section 16(7)(a) or (b) of the 1992 Act is fulfilled unless the appeal is initiated within two months of the date of service of the billing authority's notice under that section.

(3)

Where the condition mentioned in section 16(7)(c) of the 1992 Act is fulfilled, the VTE shall dismiss an appeal by an aggrieved person unless the appeal is initiated within four months of the date of service of the person's notice under section 16(4).

(4)

The VTE shall dismiss an appeal under paragraph 3 of Schedule 3 to the 1992 Act unless the appeal is initiated within two months of the date of service of written notice of the imposition of the penalty.

(5)

The VTE shall dismiss an appeal against a completion notice unless the appeal is initiated within 28 days of the date of service of the notice.

(6)

The VTE President may authorise an appeal to be entertained where the VTE President is satisfied that the failure of the person aggrieved to initiate the appeal as provided by this regulation has arisen by reason of circumstances beyond that person's control.”

There is a right of appeal on a point of law from a decision of the Tribunal to this Court: see Regulation 43 the 2009 Regulations.

The Claimant’s notice of appeal raises four grounds.

Substantial parts of the Appellant’s skeleton argument were dedicated to a discussion of the caselaw on the duty to give reasons (said to affect all four grounds of appeal). Mr Bedford in his oral submissions, however, realistically accepted that it was somewhat artificial for him to be relying on a reasons challenge, in relation to a decision which was said to be simply wrong on a point of law. His case, as refined during oral argument, ultimately raised three potential issues of law:

In my view it is convenient to take Issue 3 first, because it is critical.

As I have said, there is no dispute on this appeal that the appeal to the Tribunal was, even on the Appellant’s own case, late. The time limit is set out in the 2009 Regulations at Regulations 21(2) and 21(6). The Tribunal “must” dismiss the appeal, in a s.16(7)(a) case, where the appeal is initiated more than two months of the date of service of the notice, unless the Tribunal President is satisfied “that the failure of the person aggrieved to initiate the appeal as provided by this regulation has arisen by reason of circumstances beyond that person’s control”.

However, neither the Grounds of Appeal to this Court, nor the Appellant’s skeleton argument in support of those Grounds, say anything at all about, still less advance a positive case about, the circumstances said to be beyond the control of the Appellant which in fact caused the appeal to be submitted late. Nor is there any witness statement from the Appellant, explaining what those circumstances were, if they existed. That is an unpromising starting point for the contention that the Tribunal was wrong in law to dismiss the appeal.

Mr Bedford says that this does not matter. He says there is a breach of A1P1 where a Tribunal does not grant an extension of time for an appeal which is only one day late. Indeed, while recognising that he has no specific documentary evidence of this, he tells me on instructions that the appeal was filed electronically with the Tribunal only 5 minutes after the deadline passed, albeit this meant that the appeal was in law regarded as one day late. He says that it is disproportionate for the Tribunal not to accept the appeal in these circumstances. He says that he is not in Article 6 territory, because this case is about council tax to which the concept of “civil rights and obligations” in Article 6(1) does not apply, but he contends that the access to justice cases usually considered under Article 6 apply here by analogy, because of the impact of the appeal on the Appellant’s A1P1 rights.

Mr Bedford relied in particular on Eskander v General Medical Council [2026] EWCA Civ 372. In that case, however, the Court of Appeal’s critical finding was that the appeal had been “brought in time”: see per Nugee LJ at §§103-4. Although the Court went on to consider the discretion (or duty) to extend a statutory time limit to avoid a breach of Article 6, in case that critical finding was incorrect (see §§135-148), the Court (a) considered in some detail whether the appellant had personally done all she reasonably could to bring the appeal in time, and (b) considered evidence filed by the Appellant on that very question in order to assess whether it fell to be answered in the affirmative. Here, the very rule which is in issue (Regulation 21(6)) requires the Appellant to show why there were circumstances beyond her control, and there simply is no clear evidence before this Court which explains what those circumstances were. The only references in the papers to which I have been referred, and which describe any sort of difficulties faced by the Appellant during the relevant 2-month period, are the very brief and general comments about stress and needing help from her son, to which I have referred to at paragraph 11 above.

There are other Court of Appeal cases about the discretion to extend a statutory time limit in order to avoid a breach of the right of access to court. In Adesina v Nursing and Midwifery Council [2013] 1 WLR 3156, the Court of Appeal confirmed that there will be cases in which even an ostensibly absolute and non-extendable time limit might need to be read down in order to comply with Article 6 ECHR. The issue, as it was described by Maurice Kay LJ at §15, was how to read down the legislation “to the minimum extent necessary to secure ECHR compliance”. The answer given was that the discretion to extend time would arise “in exceptional cases”, and where the appellant “personally has done all he can to bring [the appeal] timeously”.

Exceptional circumstances are unlikely to arise where the appellant has not personally done all they can to bring an appeal in time: see Stuewe v Nursing and Midwifery Council [2022] EWCA Civ 1605 per Carr LJ at §52; c.f. Rakoczy v General Medical Council [2022] EWHC 890 (Admin) per Fordham J at §21(ii). But the legal question is whether there are, or are not, relevant exceptional circumstances.

The approach of the Strasbourg Court, when called upon to examine whether there has been an exceptional or disproportionate restriction on the right of access to a superior court, is of course very similar and can conveniently be taken from one of the recent cases that Mr Bedford showed me: Karapetyan v Armenia (App. 15736/16, ECtHR, 15 May 2025). At §87 of its Judgment the ECtHR explained the relevant considerations to be: (i) the foreseeability of the restriction; (ii) the question of who should bear the adverse consequences of errors made during the proceedings; and (iii) whether the restrictions in question can be regarded as “excessive formalism”.

In this case, I do not see any indication of the sort of exceptional circumstances that were described in Adesina, Stuewe, Rakoczy, or Karapetyan - whether that is by reference to what the appellant personally did or did not do, or anything else which might make it disproportionate to or which might impair the essence of the Appellant’s access to justice rights or her property rights.

First, this was an appeal about the correct calculation of a council tax bill. Without intending to minimise the significance of that for residents generally, or for this Appellant, it is not comparable to the regulatory appeals set out above, in which a person’s profession and livelihood were at stake. I do not need to resolve the question of principle about whether, as Mr Bedford contends it does, the Adesina / Stuewe approach applies to an appeal against a council tax calculation, or applies in quite the same way, given that there is no determination of a “civil right or obligation”. I am not persuaded, though, that the application of Regulation 21(2) and (6), which set out a fairly generous time limit of 2 months from the date of the council’s rejection of the grievance, along with precisely the sort of safeguard clause designed to catch those cases where an appellant faces real injustice (because their delay in commencing the appeal was due to circumstances which were beyond their control), involves any meaningful interference with the Appellant’s right of access to the court or her ECHR A1P1 rights. Put another way, the time limit itself, including the possibility of an extension of time, constitutes a reasonable and proportionate balance between the right of access to a court and the legitimate aim of achieving legal certainty.

Second, in this case there can be no reasonable doubt, as there plainly is in some ECHR cases (and indeed in Eskander), about whether the relevant restriction was “foreseeable”. The time limit was set out expressly in secondary legislation. Regulation 21 could hardly have been clearer.

Thirdly, there is no evidence from the Appellant explaining whether and if so how she personally did all she could to bring the appeal timeously, and nothing at all describing exceptional circumstances or any other matter which might be said to be relevant to this issue in either her Grounds of Appeal or Skeleton argument. Notwithstanding the very brief references in the documents to stress, or to the fact that the Appellant had needed her son to assist her with preparing the appeal to the Tribunal, it is impossible for me to conclude that there are circumstances which mean that someone other than the Appellant should bear the adverse consequences of the error, or that the application of the time limit set out in the Regulations would amount to “excessive formalism”.

I am therefore satisfied that any error of law said to have been made by the Tribunal about when time started to run, even if made out, was not material to the outcome. Even if the Appellant is right on Issues 1 and/or 2, the appeal fell (and falls) to be dismissed in any event, because there was (and is) no satisfactory evidence justifying an extension of time.

Strictly speaking, therefore, the other issues on this appeal do not arise. I am hesitant to rule on them in the absence of submissions being made in support of the Tribunal’s analysis. I will however say that my provisional view on Issue 1 was that there is much force in the proposition that the council’s 5 February 2024 email did not resolve the Appellant’s grievance in this case, insofar as it related to the student exemption. True, it declined to accept the exemption that the Appellant had put forward; but equally it did not rule it out entirely, observing that it was “unclear” whether the Appellant’s son had been a full-time student during the relevant period, and that in the event of appropriate documentation being provided to it, the position might change. I doubt that this email can fairly be described as a notification that the authority believed the grievance (insofar as it related to the student status ground) was not well founded.

On Issue 2, and again without seeking to rule formally on this, I am inclined to think that Mr Bedford had a good argument about whether time had only started to run once the Respondent had determined the grievance on both grounds. It did not do that until 27 August 2024. The Appellant was, after all, aggrieved by the “calculation” of her liability (see s.16(1)(b)). She had served a valid “written notice” (s.16(4)(a)). That had set out “the matter by which and the grounds on which” she was aggrieved (s.16(5)(a)). Those appear to be two separate things. The matter by which she was aggrieved was the “calculation” and/or the lack of any discount. There were two grounds on which she was aggrieved: i.e. the student status and carer status grounds that I have described. The 5 February 2024 email did not resolve the carer status ground. It would seem to follow, since neither of the other relevant conditions applied, that there could be no right of appeal, for the time being, to the Tribunal.

However, for the reasons I have given, neither of those points, interesting as they are, can avail the Appellant in light of my other conclusions. In the circumstances of this case, and for the reasons I have given, I must dismiss the appeal.

In the appeal to this court, the bundle was only filed the day before the hearing of the appeal. That was despite the ACO having chased for an appeal bundle at an earlier stage. The bundle contained a large number of new documents and email correspondence relevant to the appeal (including the grievance documents) that the Court had not previously seen. There was no sensible ordering of the correspondence, and no helpful indexing (e.g. to the grievance documents).

In addition, the Appellant in her skeleton argument sought to rely on a very large number of authorities, but did not provide any of these to the court in advance. Most of them turned out to be irrelevant to the issues the Court ultimately had to decide. Further authorities were relied on during oral argument, and were emailed to the Court by counsel, during and after the hearing. I think that more care should have been taken in selecting which authorities needed to be cited, and copies of those authorities that counsel considered of particular relevance should have been provided to the Court in advance, in the normal way.

I mention these points because they affected the Court’s ability to prepare for the case effectively and efficiently. I accept that the specific (and strict) bundle requirements found in the Part 52 Practice Directions, and the other standards and expectations which are set out in the Administrative Court Guide, do not appear to apply to this particular kind of appeal. However, it does not follow that the Court has no comparable expectations when it comes to the preparation of the case. That includes an expectation that parties should ensure that the Court has the documents it needs, certainly the key documents, well before the commencement of any hearing.