UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions

[2003] UKSSCSC CCS_2447_2002 (27 January 2003)

 


PLH Commissioner's File: CCS 2447/02

CHILD SUPPORT ACTS 1991 AND 1995

APPEAL FROM DECISION OF CHILD SUPPORT APPEAL TRIBUNAL

ON A QUESTION OF LAW

DECISION OF THE CHILD SUPPORT COMMISSIONER

Appellant: [The absent parent]

Respondents: (1) Secretary of State

(2) [The parent with care]

Appeal Tribunal: Southampton

Tribunal case ref: U/03/203/2001/01500

Tribunal date: 19 February 2002

Reasons issued: 7 March 2002

1. This appeal by the absent parent is dismissed, as in my judgment there was no error of law in the decision of the Southampton appeal tribunal sitting on 19 February 2002 when it rejected his contentions that the instalment payments on a personal loan he took out to buy the 26ft sailing yacht on which he lives should be allowed as an eligible "housing cost" in calculating his exempt income for the purposes of child support.
2. This case is concerned with the child support the appellant is required to pay for his six children aged between 19 and 10, all of whom were at the material time living with their mother, the parent with care. The appeal to the tribunal by their father raised two questions on the calculation of the assessment made by the Secretary of State on 14 August 2001, requiring him to pay a total of £91.55 per month from the effective date, 27 April 2001. However at the hearing the father very properly abandoned his appeal on one of those points, to do with whether his eldest daughter should still be counted as receiving full-time education, since a letter from her college showed his doubts on this point to be unfounded.
3. That left only his main point, on whether he should be allowed a deduction for the interest on the loan taken out to buy his yacht, which he contended should be treated in the same way as for example mortgage interest, and deducted as a housing cost under regulation 14 and Schedule 3, Child Support (Maintenance Assessments and Special Cases) Regulations 1992 SI No. 1815 as amended and in force at the time relevant for this assessment, that is on 27 April 2001.
4. The facts, which are not in dispute, were that as recorded by the chairman in his statement of reasons issued to the parties on 7 March 2002 at pages 34 to 36:

"The appellant stated that his boat … is a 26ft Westerly "Chieftain" sailing yacht, with an auxiliary motor. It is capable of cross-channel passage, and besides its use as his home, the appellant sails it recreationally. The appellant has lived on board the yacht since 6 March 2001, to begin with on … moorings in various locations … and since 3 September 2001 in [a marina], where residence on board moored yachts by a reasonable number of yacht owners is encouraged for security purposes."

5. The chairman then recorded that the appellant's yacht had been accepted by the Secretary of State as a "houseboat" for the purposes of the regulations, and his mooring charges accordingly allowed as eligible housing costs under Schedule 3, para 1(n). The chairman noted that no issue had been raised on the appeal about this but expressed his own reservations whether such a yacht truly fell within the ordinary meaning of the word "houseboat", there being no special definition in the regulations themselves. However since as he recorded no issue had been raised about this on the appeal to him, he left the Secretary of State's decision on the mooring charges undisturbed, referring to the statutory provision that an appeal tribunal need not consider any issue not raised by the appeal: see section 20(7)(a) Child Support Act 1991 as amended.
6. However as regards the payments under the loan agreement, he held that there was no scope for admitting these as "mortgage interest" or other eligible housing costs since they were payments under a personal loan agreement only, and not secured on the yacht or any other property. That was also an undisputed fact, subsequently confirmed by the appellant in his letter of appeal dated 27 March 2002 at page 39 and his observations in reply dated 8 November 2002 at page 71 where he explained that it had not been possible for him to get a marine mortgage or a secured loan for the amount he borrowed, so that this had been a personal credit agreement only.
7. On those facts, there is in my judgment no answer to the conclusion reached by the tribunal chairman and supported by the written submission of Ms O Walker on behalf of the Secretary of State dated 26 July 2002 at pages 52 to 53, that payments on an unsecured loan used to buy a boat, even if the boat is being used as the borrower's home, do not fall within any of the heads of eligible housing costs under Schedule 3. They are not mortgage interest because there is no mortgage; nor are they interest under a hire purchase agreement to buy a home, since a personal loan is not a hire purchase agreement, and the essential element of security is lacking. The appellant in his notice of appeal refers to a sub-paragraph 1(s) that used to be in Schedule 3, referring to "analogous" payments; but as Ms Walker rightly points out, that was deleted from the list by an amending regulation as from 5 April 1993 so that it can have no bearing on an assessment at the effective date of 27 April 2001. Thus the points relied on by the appellant cannot in my judgment succeed, and I dismiss his appeal.
8. There has been no cross appeal or further question raised by either the parent with care or the Secretary of State on the allowance of the mooring charges, and I do not therefore think it necessary to consider whether there was any error of law in the way these have been treated: it seems to me the chairman was justified in leaving things as they were on the basis that no issue had been raised about the point in the appeal to him. That said, I entirely share his doubts over whether a fully functional (and no doubt very nice) seagoing yacht can really fall within the normal everyday meaning of a "houseboat", which seems to me something much nearer the Collins Dictionary definition quoted in the Secretary of State's submission: "a stationary [sic] boat or barge used as a home".

(Signed)

P L Howell

Commissioner

27 January 2003