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Park homes
Administration charge
[2017] EWCA
Civ 52
[2017] PLSCS 32
Court of Appeal
Sir Terence Etherton MR and Davis and Underhill LJJ
10 February 2017
Park homes - Administration charge - Utilities - Respondents occupying mobile homes in appellant's park - Appellant charging for provision of gas, electricity and sewerage to pitches - Whether charge to include contribution to appellant's costs of providing and administering those services - Whether such additional charge recoverable under express or implied terms of pitch agreement - Appeal dismissed
The appellant operated a caravan park which was a protected site for the purposes of the Mobile Homes Act 1983. The respondents occupied mobile homes on permanent pitches in the park pursuant to standard form pitch agreements to which the implied terms in Schedule 1 to the 1983 Act applied. The express terms of the agreement included, in para 3(b) of Part IV, an obligation on the respondents "to pay and discharge all general and/or water rates which may from time to time be assessed charged or payable in respect of the mobile home or the pitch... and charges in respect of electricity gas water telephone and other services".
The respondents disputed the charge levied by the appellant for gas, electricity and sewerage services so far as those charges represented the additional costs to the appellant of providing, administering and maintaining those services,...