Robin Houldsworth v The Commissioners for HMRC

Facts

Mr Robin Houldsworth is a taxpayer whose UK residence status for the year ended 5 April 2005 is in dispute. On 8 June 2018 HMRC issued a closure notice concluding that he was resident in the UK during that year and therefore chargeable to tax on certain dividends, bringing £1,309,500 of dividends into charge and producing additional tax of £323,528.32. He appealed to the First-tier Tribunal by a Notice of Appeal dated 22 January 2020, which was out of time but not objected to by HMRC. His amended grounds were three: that no valid closure notice had been issued under section 8A of the Taxes Management Act 1970; that he was not tax resident in the UK as a matter of law; and that he had a legitimate expectation that HMRC would apply paragraph 2.2 of their published guidance IR20. Ground 1 was withdrawn on 17 January 2023, and on 13 March 2024 the Tribunal struck out the legitimate expectation ground. On 4 November 2025 the High Court granted him permission to bring judicial review out of time on three grounds concerning IR20 — breach of legitimate expectation, unreasonableness and abuse of power. On 27 October 2025 he applied to stay the tax appeal pending that judicial review; HMRC objected and applied to the High Court to stay the judicial review instead.