Licensing system for mobile home sites with permanent residents: guidance for local authorities

Chapter 10 - Transferring a Site Licence with no application

10.1. The new licensing system gives a local authority a new power to transfer a site licence by its own volition, rather than in response to an application. Under section 32G of the 1960 Act ^[69] this power can be used where:

• it appears to the local authority that the site licence holder is no longer the occupier of the site; and
• the existing site licence holder has not applied to the local authority to transfer a licence.

10.2. This power could be used when it is clear to a local authority that the occupier of the site is someone other than the licence holder, and the licence holder has not applied to transfer the licence. The purpose of the section is to give local authorities a tool they can use if a licence has not been transferred as it should have been, either deliberately or accidentally.

10.3. Following its own internal decision making process, if a local authority decides to take this step it must:

• give notice to the existing licence holder, and the person it plans to transfer the licence to (the transferee) that it intends to transfer the licence, and its reasons for doing so;
• give the existing licence holder and transferee at least 28 days to make any written representations about the local authority's transfer plan.

10.4. A local authority must also consider any written representations the existing licence holder and transferee make to it in the time limit it has set out. The existing licence holder and transferee must also give a local authority any information it reasonably requires to make its decision.

10.5. Before transferring a licence without an application a local authority will need to consider its grounds for doing so, and what evidence it has that someone other than the existing licence holder is the occupier of the site. It is a serious step to transfer a licence to another holder, and we would expect a local authority to consider such a step carefully, and only take it when there was clear evidence that an existing site licence holder was not running a site.