On the appeal—

Held, appeal allowed. (1) Section 233 of the Local Government Act 1972 applied in relation to the service by a local authority of a notice under section 83ZA of the 1985 Act. Firstly, read naturally, the language of section 233 suggested that the provision applied to any notice, order or other document which a local authority gave to or served on any person where that was required or authorised by or under any enactment unless (a) the document was one to be given or served in court proceedings (see section 233(9)) or (b) a provision of an enactment or instrument excluded section 233 (see section 233(10)). Section 233 did not on its face limit its application to circumstances in which a local authority might be said to be acting “qua local authority” or exercising a public law function. Secondly, it was not apparent that that construction would give rise to unsatisfactory consequences which Parliament would not have intended. Whilst it could be argued that such a construction would place local authorities in a better position than other landlords, there was no necessity to treat all landlords in the same way with regard to service requirements. Local authorities and other landlords were not competitors in a market. Thirdly, if section 234(1) of the 1972 Act applied wherever a local authority gave any notice which was “authorised or required by or under any enactment”, regardless of whether it was doing so “qua local authority” or in exercise of a public law function, section 233 could be expected to have similar scope. Further, were section 233 confined to situations where a local authority was acting “qua local authority” or exercising public law functions, section 231, which used similar language in addressing service on local authorities, would presumably be limited in the same way, yet there was no obvious reason for Parliament to have intended that. Fourthly, there could be considerable debate as to whether in a particular context a local authority was acting “qua local authority” or exercising public law functions. It seemed unlikely that Parliament intended the application of section 233 of the 1972 Act (or that of section 231 or section 234) to turn on a distinction which could generate such dispute. Certainty was clearly desirable in the context of provisions dealing with service and authentication, as sections 231, 233 and 234 did (post, paras 19–25).

(2) A document would be “left” at an address for the purposes of section 231 or section 233 of the 1972 Act if it was left there in a manner which a reasonable person, minded to bring the document to the attention of the person to whom the notice was addressed, would adopt. In the present case, the notice was handed to a person within the property who identified herself as the partner of the defendant and accepted the letter. That was conduct which a reasonable person minded to bring the notice to the defendant’s attention would have adopted. Section 233(7) would make little sense if effective service depended on receipt. For section 233(7) to be in point at all, it had to have proved impossible to ascertain the name or address of the relevant person after reasonable inquiry. In such circumstances, the document might not come to the attention of the intended addressee for a substantial time, if at all. The obvious inference was that section 233(7) was intended to allow a local authority to achieve service regardless of whether the addressee received, or even learned of, a document. Section 233 was designed to allocate the risks of a failure of communication and to avoid disputes on issues of fact. It followed that it was irrelevant when the defendant became aware of the notice and that the notice, having been “left” at the defendant’s address in such a way as to comply with section 233, was duly served (post, paras 31–32, 36, 41, 42, 43, 45).