The tenant sought to enfranchise the property under the 1967 Act. The freeholders replied that it was not a ‘house’ within the Act at the time of the notice. It had been built in the eighteenth century as a house, but the lower floors had been occupied for many years for business purposes. Recently it was substantially stripped and unoccupied, and the landlord argued that though built as a house it was not, at the date of the notice ‘designed or adapted for living in’, because it was not physically fit for immediate residential occupation.
Held: The tenant’s appeal was allowed. A building previously designed or adapted for living in remained a house, even though at the material time it was not only disused but in parts ‘stripped out to the basic structural shell’.
Lord Neuberger said that ‘The fact that the property had become internally dilapidated and incapable of beneficial occupation (without the installation of floor boards, plastering, re-wiring, re-plumbing and the like) does not detract from the fact that the property was ‘designed . . or living in’, when it was first built, and nothing that has happened subsequently has changed that.’ and ‘the words ‘designed or adapted for living in’, as a matter of ordinary English, require one first to consider the property as it was initially built: for what purpose was it originally designed? That is the natural meaning of the word ‘designed’, which is a past participle. One then goes on to consider whether work has subsequently been done to the property so that the original ‘design’ has been changed: has it been adapted for another purpose, and if so what purpose? When asking either question, one is ultimately concerned to decide whether the purpose for which the property has been designed or adapted, was ‘for living in’.’
The word ‘designed’ is a past participle referring back to the date of the works of design, and, it is implicit in those paragraphs, and in any event it must follow as a matter of consistency of language and approach, that the word ‘adapted’ refers back to the date of the works of adaptation.
Lord Hoffmann, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury
[2008] UKHL 5, [2008] 1 WLR 289, [2008] 2 All ER 759, [2008] HLR 29, [2008] RVR 313, [2008] 2 P and CR 20, [2008] NPC 9, [2008] L and TR 10, [2008] 1 EGLR 51, [2008] 15 EG 174, [2008] 5 EG 167
Bailii
Leasehold Reform Act 1967 2(1)
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Boss Holdings Ltd and Another v Grosvenor West End Properties Ltd CA 21-Mar-2006
The tenant served a notice of its desire to purchase the freehold. The landlord objected that the property was no longer a house as required under the Act, having become dilapidated and unoccupied.
Held: The nature of the occupancy was to be . .
Cited – Tandon v Trustees of Spurgeons Homes HL 1982
Tenants sought enfranchisement of their properties, but 75% of building consisted of a shop, and only 25% was living accomodation.
Held: The tenants were entitled to buy the freehold. The question whether a building is a house ‘reasonably so . .
Cited – Attorney General v Lamplough CA 1878
Unaltered words in an Act are to be construed as meaning what they did before the others were amended. Parliament in deleting particular words from the section in question was to exclude particular articles from liability to tax. The subsequent . .
Cited – Suffolk County Council v Mason HL 1979
The House considered the status of a pedestrian right of way through a caravan site to a beach, and the 1949 Act: ‘The sections which follow section 27 deal with the further steps which have to be taken before the definitive map is completed and . .
Cited by:
Cited – Grosvenor Estates Ltd v Prospect Estates Ltd CA 21-Nov-2008
The tenant under a long lease sought enfranchisement. The landlord denied that it was a ‘house’ reasonably so called within the 1967 Act. The building had been constructed as a house, but was now substantially used as offices. They could only be . .
Cited – Day and Another v Hosebay Ltd; Lexgorge Ltd v Howard de Walden Estates Ltd etc CA 1-Jul-2010
Properties had been built as substantial single dwellings. Later they had been converted into separate dwellings and let accordingly. The tenants sought to acquire the freeholds under the 1967 Act. Though required by the lease to use the properties . .
Cited – British Pregnancy Advisory Service v Secretary of State for Health Admn 14-Feb-2011
The claimant sought a declaration that the administration of an abortifacient drug was not ‘any treatment for the termination of pregnancy’ for the purposes of section 1 of the 1967 Act, allowing the piloting and possible adoption of early medical . .
Cited – Brown (Jamaica), Regina (on The Applications of) v Secretary of State for The Home Department SC 4-Mar-2015
B, an homosexual immigrant for Jamaica, resisted his return, saying that he would be prosecuted. The Secretary of State now appealed against a finding that his inclusion of Jamaica within the statutory list of safe countries for return was not . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.264021