The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) dismissed a park management company's appeal over invalid 2023 pitch fee notices and allowed park home owners' appeal over the starting figure for the 2024 increase.
Key facts
- Who: Park home owners on protected sites, and site operators who serve pitch fee review notices under the Mobile Homes Act 1983
- From: 11 May 2026 (date of judgment)
- Source: Marigolds Management Limited v Karen Barnes & Ors [2026] UKUT 186 (LC)
On 11 May 2026 the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), in [2026] UKUT 186 (LC), decided two appeals from the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) concerning pitch fees at The Marigolds Park, Shripney Road, Bognor Regis. His Honour Judge Johns KC decided the appeals on written representations.
Background
Under paragraphs 16 to 20 of Schedule 1, Part 1, Chapter 2 to the Mobile Homes Act 1983, a site owner must first serve a written notice setting out its proposals for a new pitch fee. The change takes effect only if the occupier agrees or the FTT determines it on an application. There is a presumption that the fee changes in line with the consumer prices index (CPI).
Marigolds Management Limited (MML) holds a lease of the park and the site licence from Arun District Council. Until at least May 2024, that lease was subject to leases of each individual pitch held by three other companies. Those pitch leases were assigned to MML in May 2024.
The appeals
MML appealed the FTT's finding that it was not the owner of the park, within the meaning of the 1983 Act, when it gave pitch fee review notices on 25 September 2023. The FTT held those notices invalid. The Upper Tribunal dismissed MML's appeal. The notices named MML as owner, which the judge described as wrong.
The second appeal concerned the 25 September 2024 notices. A group of park home owners who had not been respondents to the application on the 2023 notices appealed because the FTT applied the percentage increase to a higher starting figure for them than for other respondents. The Upper Tribunal allowed their appeal. The FTT had referred to a "lack of agreement" to the 2023 increase. The judge said the distinction drawn in the paragraphs it pointed to was between parties before the FTT and owners not party to the proceedings at all, and that what those paragraphs said did not seem to him to justify treating this group differently from the other parties to the second proceedings. Their 2023 notices were in the same form as the others.
Pitch 62
MML also sought permission to appeal the FTT's refusal to apply a 2.2% increase to pitch 62, given a reduction in the pitch's size. Permission was refused as there was no real prospect of success. MML had not produced the settlement agreement it relied on before the FTT, and it offered the document to the Upper Tribunal late and without an application to admit fresh evidence.
The judge also rejected the argument that a 2020 reduction was too old to count. Paragraph 18 of the Schedule lists factors the FTT must have particular regard to, including deterioration in a site or reduction in services since 2014, with no one-year limit. The FTT may also consider unlisted factors of enough weight to displace the CPI presumption. The FTT treated the reduction in pitch size as such a factor, and the judge saw no justification for imposing a one-year limit on it. A factor already taken into account earlier would likely carry little or no weight later.
What this means for park home owners and site operators
- A pitch fee review notice must come from the owner within the meaning of the 1983 Act. Here, the FTT held the 2023 notices invalid because MML was not the owner when it gave them, and the Upper Tribunal dismissed MML's appeal.
- In this case the judge saw nothing in the FTT's referenced paragraphs that seemed to justify applying the increase to a higher starting figure for one group of respondents, and allowed their appeal.
- In this case a reduction in pitch size that happened in 2020 was not ruled out simply because of its age.
- Anyone served with a notice, or considering a challenge, should check the notice and its dates, and get advice before any deadline passes.
Any party may seek permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal on a point of law, with an application due within one month of the decision being sent to the parties (subject to the costs timetable in the decision).
Sources
- Marigolds Management Limited v Karen Barnes & Ors [2026] UKUT 186 (LC), Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), 11 May 2026: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukut/lc/2026/186