Council wins appeal over grant of summary judgment to defendant with introductory tenancy over claim for possession

His Honour Judge Grimshaw, sitting at the County Court at Walsall, said the case before him raised four specific questions of law and procedure.

These were:

• How is an appeal brought in a High Court District Registry;
• Does any failure to bring an appeal in time end the 'trial period' and/or introductory nature of an 'introductory tenancy;
• Can a later extension of the time limit for permission to appeal also extend the longevity of an introductory tenancy;
• Once a first set of possession proceedings have ended, does s. 130(1)(a) Housing Act 1996 apply to a subsequent set of possession proceedings and thus prevent the tenancy from ceasing to be an introductory tenancy?

Sandwell appealed against a ruling by DDJ Mason who granted summary judgment to the tenant on the basis that Sandwell had no reasonable prospects of succeeding in its claim for possession of the property in which she lived.

HHJ Grimshaw noted section 124 of the Housing Act 1996 gave powers to local authorities to operate probationary introductory tenancies, such as that granted to the tenant for a property in West Bromwich in March 2022.

In January 2023 though Sandwell served notice to terminate the tenancy after complaints about noise and anti-social behaviour, but in March that year HHJ Saira Singh dismissed the notice on the basis it was invalid.

Sandwell sought to appeal by a 20 November 2024 deadline and said it filed appeal papers on 18 November 2024 with the High Court Birmingham District Registry but it told Sandwell it should have used the E-Filing system and “as this appeal will be out of time when re-filed you will need to apply for an extension of time in Part B of Section 10 and Section 11 of the Appellant's Notice”.

Sandwell then filed further appeal documentation on 28 November 2023.

The tenant argued the appeal was accordingly brought out of time but Sandwell said the 18 November filing was in time and was incorrectly not issued by the court and that in any event Ritchie J extended the time period within which the appeal could be brought.

HHJ Grimshaw turned first to Sandwell’s case that it was not a requirement that the appeal documentation be filed electronically.

Sandwell argued the electronic working pilot scheme (EWPS) did not apply to an appeal from the County Court to the High Court and did not prevail over the other CPR in that Part 52 was in force and was specifically preserved by §1.2 of PD 51O..

The council said §2.2H of PD 51O did not apply because an appeal was not a relevant claim or application and there had been no amendment to CPR Parts 5 or 52 that required appeal documentation to be filed electronically for appeals from the County Court, or any rule that provided that an appeal lodged on paper was invalid.

HHJ Grimshaw said: “PD 51O is not drafted as clearly as it could have been. This has led to a situation where there is a lack of clarity as to the appropriate steps that an appellant should take when filing an appeal from a circuit judge to the High Court when the local appeal centre is one of the district registries that is part of the EWPS.

“Having considered the various CPR provisions alongside each other, I have reached the conclusion that there is a lack of clarity and, indeed, some contradiction as to the appropriate steps to take. This is therefore not an easy point to resolve, with valid points on both sides as to the appropriate construction of the various rules.”

HHJ Grimshaw said though electronic filing appeared not to be mandatory in such cases and the lower court had been wrong to decide it was.

The tenant then argued that should Sandwell succeed on any ground its appeal must ultimately be dismissed because the possession proceedings do not satisfy s.130(1) of the Act.

She argued that the first set of possession proceedings were unambiguously finally determined at a hearing by Soole J when he refused permission to appeal in April 2025 and the tenancy ceased to be introductory because the new possession proceedings could not satisfy the preconditions set by s. 130(1) of the Act for the tenancy to be extended.

HHJ Grimshaw said: “The upshot of this argument is that an introductory tenancy could only be extended once by s. 130(2) and not for a second time.

“I was not taken to any case law with regards to this submission and was invited to perform both a textual analysis of the provisions but also a purposive reading of the legislation. I must say, once again, I have not found this an easy issue to determine as there are sound arguments on both sides for the opposing contentions as to meaning of s.130 of the Act.”

He concluded the purpose of s.130 was to stop an introductory tenancy from ceasing to be one where a landlord had started possession proceedings just because such proceedings may not have been resolved within the trial period.

Sandwell said it did have the right to continue with the second set of possession proceedings and the DDJ was wrong to enter summary judgment on that basis.

HHJ Grimshaw allowed its appeal and dismissed the argument over s130 made by the tenant.

Mark Smulian