Houses in Kensington were let together for a term of just over 50 years. There was just one title for the headlease. Informal subleases of parts had been granted granted at no rent. After several dealings with the titles, and the plaintiffs came to be the freeholders and landlords of the informal leases. When they sought possession, the defendants claimed that the leases were protected having overriding interests as tenants in possession. The plaintiffs said that there could be no leases without rent being paid.
Held: A lease did not require payment of rent to be valid, and the defendants had overriding interests.
Fox LJ said ‘the overriding interest will relate to the land occupied but to nothing else’.
Fox, Neill and Bingham LJJ
[1987] EGLR 71, Times 09-Nov-1987, [1987] 284 EG 1375
England and Wales
Cited by:
Applied – Lloyd and others v Dugdale and Another CA 21-Nov-2001
The claimants asserted a right to possession of land, and the defendant resisted, claiming a proprietary estoppel. A predecessor had intended to grant a sub-lease to the defendant, who had arranged for his company JAD Ltd to execute major works on . .
Overruled – Prudential Assurance Co Ltd v London Residuary Body and Others HL 16-Jul-1992
The parties signed a memorandum of agreement to let a strip of land from 1930 until determined as provided, but the only provision was that the lease would continue until the land was needed for road widening and two months’ notice was given. The . .
Overruled – Ferrishurst Ltd v Wallcite Ltd CA 30-Nov-1998
A person in actual occupation of registered land at time of transfer can enforce his rights against the transferee. A sub-underlessee in occupation of part could enforce an option to purchase against the freeholder acquiring intermediate registered . .
See Also – Ashburn Anstalt v Arnold (2) CA 25-Feb-1988
Various leases of properties had been granted. Legal and General occupied the property under an arrangement under which they paid no rent. The landlord sought possession, saying that the agreements were licences not tenancies because of the absence . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 21 September 2021; Ref: scu.180558 br>