The appellant had guaranteed the tenant’s obligations under an underlease. The tenant having become insolvent, the landlord sought to enforce the guarantee. The appellant said that the landlord had accepted a surrender of the underlease. The landlord had taken possession proceedings after the tenant had left and squatters had moved onto the land. The landlord also sought the cost of the possession proceedings.
Held: Where possession is unequivocally offered and retaken, it will, without more, be inequitable for the landlord to deny that the tenancy has ended, because he cannot at one and the same time have both possession and continuing rent under the tenancy. Aldous LJ said that the court’s task is to ascertain from all the facts whether the landlord’s conduct: ‘did in fact amount to an unequivocal acceptance of cessor of the tenancy such that it would be inequitable for the landlord to dispute that the tenancy ceased’.
Judges:
Aldous LJ
Citations:
[1997] EWCA Civ 1616, [1998] 2 EGLR 65
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Artworld Financial Corporation v Safaryan and Others CA 27-Feb-2009
The parties disputed whether the landlord had accepted the surrender of a lease. The tenant had handed in the keys. The landlord claimed rent for the subsequent period. The court had found surrender by operation of law, the landlord taking several . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant, Insolvency
Updated: 12 September 2022; Ref: scu.142012