The court considered a notice which did not comply with section 25 in several respects. One defect was that it did not comply with 25(5) since it only required the tenants to notify the landlord if they were not willing to give up possession: it required the tenants to give a negative counter notice but not a positive counter notice if they were willing to give up possession.
Held: The notice was valid. The court applied a purposive approach to the construction of the 1954 Act. ‘the only purpose of the positive counter notice is to introduce certainty into the transaction. By contrast, the negative counter notice serves another obvious purpose, since it links in directly with section 29(2) of the Act. If that is right, as I believe it to be, I ask myself next, what was the object of introducing certainty into the transaction in the case of a positive counter notice? Was it for the benefit of the landlord or the tenant or both? The answer to that question must surely be that it was for the benefit of the landlord alone.’ Accordingly the landlord could waive the benefit of the notice.
Judges:
Lloyd LJ, Nourse and Ralph Gibson LJJ
Citations:
(1991) 63 P and CR 18
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – In re 14 Grafton Street London W1 ChD 1971
The landlord served a notice to terminate the tenancy. The tenant served a notice to say that he did want a new tenancy, but the law then changed and he purported to withdraw his notice, and gave up possession claiming compensation for improvements. . .
Cited by:
Cited – Shaws (EAL) Ltd v Pennycook CA 2-Feb-2004
Tenant’s First Notice to terminate, stood
The landlord served a notice to terminate the business lease. The tenant first served a notice to say that it would not seek a new lease, but then, and still within the time limit, it served a second counter-notice seeking a new tenancy. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 23 March 2022; Ref: scu.193763