Upper Tribunal issues ruling on acquisition of land subject to compulsory purchase where ownership unknown

Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council has secured an order from the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) that it need not serve a notice to treat when engaged in the compulsory purchase of land from an unknown person, despite the Court Funds Office maintaining that it was.

The case concerned five sites, totalling 2,891 square metres in all, which Stockport acquired to provide a new relief road linking the A6 to Manchester Airport. 

It was unable to identify the owners of the sites but entered the land in March 2015 and construction of the new road was completed in 2018.

In The Metropolitan Borough Council of Stockport v Unknown Owners [2023] UKUT 53 (LC) Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President said Stockport had already obtained a determination from the Tribunal under Schedule 2 to the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 of the amount of compensation payable for each site and the final step before completing acquisition would be to pay compensation into court and execute a deed poll vesting the land in itself.

But Mr Rodger was told Stockport had tried to make this payment but it had been refused by the Court Funds Office, as it required the date on which notice to treat was given. 

Stockport had not issued such notices - since it did not know to whom they should be issued - and so the Court Funds Office returned the money to the council on the basis that the statutory procedural requirements have not been complied with.

Mr Rodger said under s5 of the Compulsory Purchase Act 1965 the requirement to give a notice to treat to persons interested in the land applied only to those “known to the acquiring authority after making diligent inquiry”. 

He said: “There is therefore no requirement to give notice to such persons if they are not known to the acquiring authority after it has made diligent inquiry.”

This meant no notice to treat is required to be served on an owner of land whose identity is unknown, nor need any such notice be posted on or near the land. 

“Such a notice is only required to be given to those whose identity is known,” Mr Rodger said. “That can hardly be a surprise.”

He concluded: “As the Court Funds Office has requested the comfort of a further direction from the Tribunal to allow the necessary deposits to be made, I am happy to make the order proposed.”

Mark Smulian