London Borough of Waltham Forest v Great House (Buildings) Limited

This is the decision of the Tribunal following the hearing on 9 June 2026 of the appellant’s appeal from the decision of the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (Residential Property) dated 11 September 2025 whereby the respondent’s appeal against a financial penalty notice in the sum of £15,600 served on 23 September 2024 for an offence contrary to section 72(1) Housing Act 2004 was allowed, and the financial penalty notice was cancelled.

The appellant is a local housing authority. The legislative background, which is not in contention, is as follows. A local housing authority may impose a financial penalty on a person if satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the person’s conduct amounts to a relevant housing offence in respect of premises in England: s.249A(1) Housing Act 2004. An offence under section 72 of that Act is a relevant housing offence for these purposes: s.249A(2)(b) Housing Act 2004. It is not in dispute that the respondent committed such an offence by managing or having control of a house in multiple occupation when it should have been licensed but was not, nor that the appellant was entitled to impose a financial penalty in respect of that offence.

The procedure for imposing financial penalties is set out in Schedule 13A of the 2004 Act: s.249A(6) Housing Act 2004. By paragraph 1 of that Schedule, it is provided that before imposing a financial penalty on a person under section 249A the local housing authority must give the person notice of the authority's proposal to do so (a ‘notice of intent’). Paragraph 2(1) of the same Schedule provides that:

“The notice of intent must be given before the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the first day on which the authority has sufficient evidence of the conduct to which the financial penalty relates.”

The effect of section 233 Local Government Act 1972 is that notice of intent may be given to a person in the position of the respondent inter alia by sending it by post to it at its registered or principal office. (I was also referred to section 246 (9) Housing Act 2004, but that only applies to the Common Council of the City of London and to the Sub-Treasurer of the Inner Temple or the Under-Treasurer of the Middle Temple in their capacity as a local authority, and is not relevant to this appeal.)

By s. 7 Interpretation Act 1978 it is provided that:

“Where an Act authorises or requires any document to be served by post (whether the expression “serve” or the expression “give” or “send” or any other expression is used) then, unless the contrary intention appears, the service is deemed to be effected by properly addressing, pre-paying and posting a letter containing the document and, unless the contrary is proved, to have been effected at the time at which the letter would be delivered in the ordinary course of post.”

In the present case, the appellant sent its notice of intent to the respondent on 20 March 2024 by first class post. In the notice, the date of the offence upon which the appellant relied was stated to be 21 September 2023. It did not refer to any continuing offence. 21 September 2023 was the date upon which the premises were inspected.

Before the First-tier Tribunal, the respondent contended that the notice of intent was out of time.

The First-tier Tribunal rejected the appellant’s contention that it could rely upon the offence’s having continued after 21 September 2023; and the contention that the appellant did not have sufficient evidence of the conduct to which the financial penalty related on 21 September 2023, but only when it subsequently received a copy of a written tenancy agreement. There is no appeal on these points.

The First-tier Tribunal also rejected the appellant’s contention that having regard to the corresponding date rule the time limit for the notice of intent expired on 21 March 2024, not 20 March 2024; and that the notice of intent should be regarded as having been given on 21 March 2024 pursuant to the ordinary course of post, finding instead that the notice of intent would have been received in the ordinary course of post on 22 March 2024, which was too late. The appellant appeals these points to this Tribunal.

There are four grounds of appeal, for all of which this Tribunal gave permission to appeal on 18 November 2025. They are, in summary, as follows.

It is more natural to start with Ground 2, which is concerned with the starting point of the period in question. The first day on which the authority has sufficient evidence of the conduct is agreed to be 21 September 2023. The question is when the period beginning with that day starts. The appellant contends that it starts with the following day, the respondent that it starts with that day.

Apart from authority, and as a matter of the ordinary use of language, this Tribunal should have thought it obvious that it starts with that day: that is, first day on which the authority has sufficient evidence of the conduct is to be included in the period.

Authority supports that proposition. In Zoan v Rouamba [2000] 1 W.L.R. 1509 CA, the Court of Appeal held at paras. 23-25 as follows.

“23.

Where, under some legislative provision, an act is required to be done within a fixed period of time "beginning with" or "from" a specified day it is a question of construction whether the specified day itself is to be included in, or excluded from, that period. Where the period within which the act is to be done is expressed to be a number of days, months or years from or after a specified day, the courts have held, consistently since Young v. Higgon (1840) 6 M. & W. 49, that the specified day is excluded from the period; that is to say, that the period commences on the day after the specified day. Examples of such an "exclusive" construction are found in Goldsmiths' Co. v. West Metropolitan Railway Co. [1904] 1 K.B. 1 ("the powers of the company for the compulsory purchase of lands for the purposes of this Act shall cease after the expiration of three years from the passing of this Act") and in In re Lympe Investments Ltd. [1972] 1 W.L.R. 523 ("the company has for three weeks thereafter neglected to pay"). In Stewart v. Chapman [1951] 2 K.B. 792 ("a person . . . shall not be convicted unless . . . within 14 days of the commission of the offence a summons for the offence was served on him") Lord Goddard C.J. observed, at pp. 798-799, that it was well established that "whatever the expression used" the day from which the period of time was to be reckoned was to be excluded.

24.

Where, however, the period within which the act is to be done is expressed to be a period beginning with a specified day, then it has been held, with equal consistency over the past 40 years or thereabouts, that the legislature (or the relevant rule making body, as the case may be) has shown a clear intention that the specified day must be included in the period. Examples of an "inclusive" construction are to be found in Hare v. Gocher [1962] 2 Q.B. 641 ("if within [the period of two months beginning with the commencement of this Act] the occupier of an existing site duly makes an application . . . for a site licence") and in Trow v. Ind Coope (West Midlands) Ltd. [1967] 2 Q.B. 899 ("a writ . . . is valid . . . for 12 months beginning with the date of its issue"). As Salmon L.J. pointed out in Trow v. Ind Coope (West Midlands) Ltd., at p. 923, the approach adopted in the Goldsmith's Co. case [1904] 1 K.B. 1 and Stewart v. Chapman [1951] 2 K.B. 792 can have no application in a case where the period is expressed to begin on the specified date. He observed, at p. 924, that "I cannot . . . accept that, if words have any meaning, 'beginning with the date of its issue' can be construed to mean the same as 'beginning with the day after the date of its issue.'"

25.

The judge held that it was "obvious," from the use of the expression "beginning with the date of the agreement" in article 3(l)(a)(i) of the Order of 1989, that the period of 12 months prescribed by that paragraph included the date of the agreement. In our view he was plainly correct to reach that conclusion. Notwithstanding the submissions advanced on behalf of the plaintiff, we can see no basis on which this court could refuse to apply the reasoning which led the majority (Harman and Salmon L.JJ.) in Trow v. Ind Coope (West Midlands) Ltd. [1967] 2 Q.B. 899 to hold that there is a real difference between a direction that a period of time is to begin with a specified date and a direction that a period is to be reckoned from that date.”

Zoan v Rouamba [2000]1 W.L.R. 1509 CA has been consistently followed, including in R (on application of Vitaliy Zaporozhchenko and another) v Westminster Magistrates' Court Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 34 (Admin), and DPP v Jackson [2025] EWHC 2797 (Admin).In Barker v Hambleton DC [2012] EWCA Civ 610 the Court of Appeal came to the same conclusion.

The present case is an example of the second class of case discussed in Zoan, that is, the period within which the act is to be done is expressed to be a period beginning with a specified day.

Counsel for the appellant argued that because the first day on which the authority has sufficient evidence of the conduct necessarily includes at least some time before they have that evidence, assuming that point arrives during the course of the day, the day ought not to be included in the calculation because it only gives the authority a fraction of a day, rather than the full day which Parliament must have intended; and fractions of days are in any event not counted in the calculation of time for legal purposes, so that the fraction of the day after which that point arrived should not be counted and should be excluded from calculation.

In support of this proposition, she cited Marren v Dawson [1961] 2 QB 135, in which Havers J relied on a passage in the then current edition of Halsbury’s Laws of England which read:

“The general rule in cases in which a period " is fixed within which a person must act or take the consequences is that the day of the act or event from which the period runs should not be counted against him”.

But that was in construing s2(1) Limitation Act 1939, which provided that certain actions “shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the cause of action accrued.” [Emphasis supplied]. Marren is not a case the period within which the act is to be done is expressed to be a period beginning with a specified day. As the Court observed in DPP v Jackson [2025] EWHC 2797 (Admin), contrasting such cases with those in which the relevant phrase is “starting with” (including Zoan, Zaporozhchenko and Barker):

“…the effect of wording such as “of”, “after” or “from” a certain date is that that date itself must be excluded from the calculation of the time-limit: see, where this conclusion was part of the ratio of the decision in question, The Goldsmith's Company, Radcliffe; Stewart; Marren; Pritam Kaur; and, in particular, Dodds”.

Dodds v Walker [1981] 1 W.L.R. 1027 was a decision of the House of Lords about the corresponding date rule. Ground 1 of the appeal in this case is that the corresponding date rule applies here. As the headnote states, under section 29(3) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, a tenant had “four months after the giving of the landlord's notice” to apply to the county court for a new tenancy. The tenant applied on January 31, 1979. The registrar dismissed the application on the basis that it was out of time and, on appeal, the judge held that, in computing the four months' period under section 29(3), the day the landlord gave notice was to be excluded but, notwithstanding that September was a 30 day month, the period elapsed on the corresponding day in the fourth month, namely, January 30, and therefore the tenant's application made on the last day of January was made one day too late. The Court of Appeal affirmed that decision. The House of Lords dismissed the appeal, holding that in construing section 29(3) of the Act the corresponding date rule applied, so that in calculating the period which had elapsed after the giving of the landlord's notice and excluding that day, the relevant period was the specified number of months thereafter which ended on the corresponding day of the appropriate subsequent month, and accordingly the tenant had made his application out of time. Lord Diplock opined at 1029 B-E:

“It is also clear under a rule that has been consistently applied by the courts since Lester v. Garland (1808) 15 Ves. Jun. 248, that in calculating the period that has elapsed after the occurrence of the specified event such as the giving of a notice, the day on which the event occurs is excluded from the reckoning. It is equally well established, and is not disputed by counsel for the tenant, that when the relevant period is a month or specified number of months after the giving of a notice, the general rule is that the period ends upon the corresponding date in the appropriate subsequent month, i.e. the day of that month that bears the same number as the day of the earlier month on which the notice was given.

The corresponding date rule is simple. It is easy of application. Except in a small minority of cases, of which the instant case is not an example, all that the calculator has to do is to mark in his diary the corresponding date in the appropriate subsequent month. Because the number of days in five months of the year is less than in the seven others the inevitable consequence of the corresponding date rule is that one month's notice given in a 30 day month is one day shorter than one month's notice given in a 31 day month and is three days shorter if it is given in February. Corresponding variations in the length of notice reckoned in days occur where the required notice is a plurality of months.”

Again, this was a case where the time specified was ‘after’ a particular date, not ‘beginning with’ that date. It does not assist the appellant.

This Tribunal therefore concludes that the period of 6 months beginning with the first day on which the authority has sufficient evidence of the conduct to which the financial penalty relates includes that first day. Since the first day was 21 September 2023, the period began on and included 21 September 2023, not 22 September 2023. It follows that Ground 2 of this appeal is unsuccessful.

The appellant argued that the corresponding date rule applied. The rule applies when the relevant period is a specified number of months after a particular date. Here, however, the relevant period is a specified number of months beginning with (and including) a particular date. If the particular date is 21 September 2023 and the corresponding date rule applies, then the period of 6 months ends on 21 March 2024 and notice of intent must be given on that day at the latest. If the particular date is 21 September 2023 and the corresponding date rule does not apply, then the period of 6 months ends on 20 March 2024 and notice of intent must be given on 20 March 2024 at the latest.

Counsel for the appellant argued that the corresponding date rule applies, not only when the relevant period is a month or specified number of months after, for example, the giving of a notice (as in Dodds), but also applies when the initial date is included, as where the relevant period is identified as beginning with a particular date. Her difficulty here was that in R (on application of Vitaliy Zaporozhchenko and another) v Westminster Magistrates' Court Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] EWHC 34 (Admin), at [15] that proposition was expressly rejected. She sought to distinguish that case on two grounds: first, that the rule was never hard and fast, but only a general rule; and, second, that the provisions of the statute presently under consideration differed from those in Zaporozhchenko. However, there is nothing here to take the case out of the general rule; and nothing relevantly different in the statutory provisions. The same conclusion was reached in DPP v Jackson [2025] EWHC 2797 (Admin).

It follows that the corresponding date rule does not apply, and time expired at midnight on 20 March 2024.

The appellant referred to Tze Moh v Rimal Properties Ltd [2024] UKUT 324 (LC). This was a case in which, rather than the meaning of a period "after" an event, or a date "within" so many months of an event, the Tribunal was considering a provision (s.41(2)(b) Housing and Planning Act 2016) in which the requirement was that "the offence was committed in the period of 12 months ending with the day on which the application is made.” [Emphasis supplied]. On the basis of the corresponding date rule, it was argued that "the offence was committed in the period of 12 months before the day on which the application was made." [Emphasis supplied]. The Tribunal accepted that the corresponding date rule clearly applies when time is to be computed after a specified event, and that the same rule is to be followed when a period is to be computed before a specified event. But the Tribunal did not accept that it applied to a period ending on a particular date: in that case the language implies that the start and end date are each within the period.

Plainly this is not a case where the definition is of a period ending with a specified date. However, on the basis of this decision the appellant argued that where para.2(1) Schedule 13A Housing Act 2004 provides that the “…notice of intent must be given before the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the first day on which the authority has sufficient evidence of the conduct to which the financial penalty relates,” the notice of intent must be served at the latest on the date on which the period ended. This does not assist, however, since in the present case the period ended on 20 March 2024.

The appellant cited Bednash v Westminster City Council [2014] EWHC 2160 (Admin) was concerned with s. 47(10) Licencing Act 2003 by which an application for the transfer of a premises licence needed to be made within “the period beginning with the day on which the interim authority notice is received by the relevant licensing authority and ending - (a) three months after that day . . .” Everyone agreed that the period began on and including the day on which the interim authority notice is received, on the basis of Zaporozhchenko and Zoan. The question was when the period ended. At para 14 Moss LJ stated as follows.

“The wording of section 47(10) seems to me to be plain in identifying the end of the period in the words "three months after that date", that is three months after 2 August 2012. Three months after 2 August 2012 was 2 November 2012. The words "that day" is plainly a reference to the day on which the interim authority notice is received, namely 2 August 2012. Three months after that date was, as I have said, 2 November 2012.”

Again, however, this was a case in which the Court was concerned with a period of time after a specified date, which is not this case.

The appellant cited Tanveer v East London Bus and Coach Co Ltd [2016] 2 WLUK 214, a decision of Eady J in the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The relevant period ended one month after 30 June 2015. The Tribunal had applied the corresponding date rule, so that time expired on 30 July 2015. It was argued that the case fell into one of the exceptions for which Dodds had allowed but the argument failed.

None of these authorities assists the appellant in promoting the proposition that the corresponding date rule applies in a case such as the present. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal that the wording of the para.2(1) Schedule 13A Housing Act 2004 excluded the application of the corresponding date rule was correct.

Accordingly, Grounds 1 and 2 of the appeal fail, and the notice of intent needed to be given on 20 March 2024 at the latest.

It is agreed that the notice of intent was only posted on 20 March 2024, and it follows that on the conclusion to which this Tribunal has come, that it was not given in time in any event, since it will not have arrived the same day. Ground 3 does not arise, therefore, as indeed it did not below, and for the same reason, but for the sake of completeness it is briefly considered below.

The First-tier Tribunal followed this Tribunal in Newcastle City Council v Abdallah [2024] UKUT 140 (LC) in adopting as a useful rule of thumb the provision in Civil Procedure Rules, Part 6.26, and the associated Practice Direction, that the ordinary course of post for first class mail meant delivery the second day after posting, provided that day is a business day; or if not, the next business day after that day. Of course, as Counsel for the appellant points out, the Civil Procedure Rules do not apply in this jurisdiction.

On that footing the notice of intent will have been given on 22 March 2024.

Counsel for the appellant submitted, however, that for first class post, delivery is typically deemed to occur on the next business day, citing Savage v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2011] UKFTT 816 (TC), a decision of the First-tier Tribunal made without a hearing. The appellant in that case posted his returns on 14 March 2011. HMRC said they had not been received until 14 April 2014. On his appeal against the ensuing penalty notice the reviewing officer said that the return had been due on 12 April 2011 and he was surcharged for the delay between 12 and 14 April 2011. He appealed the surcharge. The Tribunal took judicial notice of Royal Mail’s delivery times: the “ordinary course of post” is that letters sent second class were delivered on the third working day after posting; those sent first class were delivered on the next working day. If sent by first class post his returns would have been deemed to have arrived on the next working day: [41]. Since the evidence of the Commissioners of the date of receipt was not satisfactory, the return was held to have been delivered well before the due date. The Tribunal said it had come to that conclusion without taking judicial notice of the extensive publicity given to the widespread and lengthy delays in opening post at HMRC offices.

This decision is not authority for the proposition that in 2025 the First-tier Tribunal should have taken judicial notice of Royal Mail’s delivery times in 2011. In answer to this Tribunal’s query, Counsel invited it to take judicial notice of current delivery times. The Tribunal considers that, under current conditions, first class post is to be expected to be delivered on the second working day after posting and that (consistently with Savage v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2011] UKFTT 816 (TC)) that is reflected in Civil Procedure Rules, Part 6.26, and the associated Practice Direction.

The First-tier Tribunal did not reverse the burden of proof by requiring the appellant to show that the notice of intent would have been delivered earlier than the second business day after it was posted. The absence of evidence to which it referred was not evidence that it would have been received otherwise than in the ordinary course of post, but evidence on the basis of which it might have concluded that the ordinary course of post was otherwise than as referred to in the Abdallah case.

It follows that the appeal would have failed on Ground 3 even had the date for delivery been 21 March 2024 as the appellant contended.

Accordingly, this appeal is dismissed.