Category: Landlord and Tenant

Lankester and Son Ltd v Rennie and Another: CA 2 Dec 2014

The transfer of a lease remained unregistered.
Held: The court acknowledged the importance of not confusing the equitable rights as between transferor and transferee with the legal rights as between landlord and tenant.

[2014] EWCA Civ 1515
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Applied – Brown and Root Technology Ltd and Another v Sun Alliance and London Assurance Comp Ltd CA 19-Dec-1996
The claimant had a personal right to exercise a break clause in a lease of which it was the registered proprietor, that right coming to an end when it assigned the lease. The lease was assigned to another company within the group which took over . .

Cited by:
Cited – Stodday Land Ltd and Another v Pye ChD 7-Oct-2016
The agricultural landlord sold part of his land subject to the respondent’s tenancy to the appellant. Before the transfer was registered, notices to quit were served by both the landlord and his buyer. The tenant challenged both notices in the . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant, Registered Land

Updated: 24 December 2021; Ref: scu.539436

FW Woolworth plc v Charlwood Alliance Properties Ltd: ChD 1987

The tenant complained that the landlord had unreasonably withheld its consent to a proposed assignment.
Held: The landlords were not acting unreasonably in refusing consent on grounds which were unexceptionable. Judge Finlay QC said: ‘The landlords here are, in my judgment, entitled to consider the likely effect upon their ability to let other parts of the property and, indeed, to obtain the appropriate rents for their other property in the centre. At all material times there was a high likelihood, now shown to be a certainty, that the assignee would not keep the store open and the landlords are entitled to consider the effect which that would have upon their ability not only to let the other property in the centre but to obtain satisfactory rents for them.’

Judge Finlay QC
[1987] 1 EGLR 53
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Norwich Union Life Insurance Society v Shopmoor Ltd ChD 10-Apr-1997
The tenants had applied for a licence to assign the property. The landlords had prevaricated, and the judge found their delay unreasonable and that it amounted to an unreasonable withholding of consent. They now appealed.
Held: The 1988 Act . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.263800

Lloyds Bank plc v Bowker Orford: ChD 1992

The court considered service charge provisions in a lease. Neuberger J said: ‘if the lease enumerates a number of aspects of the costs of the provision of the caretaker’s flat for which the tenant is liable, there is obviously a fairly formidable argument open to the tenant that the parties cannot have intended any further aspects of the costs of the caretaker’s flat to be included in the service charge.’

Mr David Neuberger QC
[1992] 2 EGLR 47G
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Gilje and others v Charlgrove Securities Ltd CA 4-Oct-2001
The court was asked as to the liability of five underlessees to pay the rent for a caretaker employed by the landlord. The lease envisaged a caretaker living in the building. Previously the caretaker had been paid a larger wage but had then paid a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.263798

Fowles v Heathrow Airport Ltd: ChD 15 Feb 2008

The landlord had opposed the tenant’s application to renew his tenancy, and the tenant also claimed title to additional land by adverse possession. The tenant asserted various business uses, some of which the landlord denied. The landlord went into liquidation, the title was disclaimed by the liquidator, and the mortgagee sold on to the defendant. At the same time in planning enforcement proceedings, the tenant had not asserted some of the uses he now claimed, and he remained in breach of planning controls. The landlord said that the failure to comply with planning obligations allowed the landlord to resist renewal.
Held: A pragmatic approach was appropriate in considering planning enforcement notices. The tenants argument that there was a technical breach by the planners was ineffective. The tenant’s activities on the site had been substantially unlawful over many years. It followed that under the 1954 Act, the court should refuse renewal. As to the claim for acquiring title by adverse possession, the evidence did not support possession over a sufficiently long period of time. The registered proprietor was entitled to possession.

Lewison J
[2008] EWHC 219 (Ch)
Bailii
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 30(1)(c)
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Turner and Bell v Searles (Stanford-le-Hope) Limited 1977
The landlord opposed the grant of a new tenancy. The business tenancy was an oral one, and he opposed renewal on the ground that the tenant was operating in breach of planning controls.
Held: An illegal use is a reason connected with the . .
Cited – Roger Raymond Jarmain v Secretary of State for Environment and Another CA 12-Apr-2000
Brooke LJ contrasted a ‘purist’ approach and a ‘pragmatic’ approach to questions of planning enforcement and preferred the pragmatic approach: ‘Anyone who had any experience of the operation of the former law relating to the enforcement of planning . .
Cited – Cresswell and Cresswell v Pearson Admn 20-Mar-1997
The grant of a temporary planning permission for a use that has previously been the subject of an enforcement notice has the effect of discharging the enforcement notice for all time, in so far as it relates to that use, rather than merely for the . .
Cited – Henry Boot Homes Limited v Bassetlaw District Council CA 28-Nov-2002
The claimant asserted that the behaviour of the local authority gave rise to a legitimate expectation such as to allow them to commence works in breach of a planning condition.
Held: The circumstances under which a claimant might rely upon a . .
Cited – Regina (Westminster City Council) v British Waterways Board HL 1985
The tenant occupied land next to a canal under a lease from the Defendants. The landlord opposed a renewal saying they wished to occupy the land themselves for the purposes of a marina. The tenant said the plan was unrealistic, because it would not . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Land, Landlord and Tenant, Planning

Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.264534

J S Bloor (Measham) Ltd v Eric Myles Calcott: ChD 23 Nov 2001

The tenant had claimed a tenancy under the Act. The landlord sought to assert a proprietary estoppel against them. There was nothing in the 1986 Act to stop the claimants relying on a proprietary estoppel and asserting their claims to occupation. The defendant’s tenancy was unenforceable against them.

Mr Justice Hart
Times 12-Dec-2001, Gazette 24-Jan-2002, [2001] EWHC Ch 467, CH1997 J No: 5742
Bailii
Agricultural Holdings Act 1986
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Johnson v Moreton HL 1980
The tenant had, in the tenancy agreement itself, purported to contract ‘not in any event to serve a counter-notice under Section 24(1)’ of the 1948 Act.
Held: A head tenant under an agricultural tenancy has the right to challenge any notice to . .
Cited – Keen v Holland CA 1984
Oliver LJ rejected a submission that, where parties were shown to have a common view about the legal effect of a contract into which they had entered and it was established that one of them would not, to the other’s knowledge, have entered into it . .
Cited – Solle v Butcher CA 1949
Fundamental Mistake Needed to Allow Rescission
The court set out the circumstances in which the equitable remedy of rescission of a contract is available for mutual mistake. The mistake has to be as to some fundamental element of the contract. What is ‘fundamental’ is a wider category of event . .
Cited – Lawrence and Another v Lexcore Holdings Ltd 1978
Effect of a mistake in a document. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Agriculture, Landlord and Tenant, Estoppel, Damages

Updated: 23 December 2021; Ref: scu.166919

Plotnek v Govan: UTLC 8 Sep 2014

UTLC LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT – purchase price – provision in lease for rent reviews – proper construction of rent review provisions – whether LVT in error in rejecting lessor’s argument that the reviewed rent should have been assessed in the same manner as a modern ground rent under section 15(2) Leasehold Reform Act 1967 – whether reviewed rent to be assessed on basis that the hypothetical lease was to be granted at no premium

[2014] UKUT 332 (LC)
Bailii
Leasehold Reform Act 1967 15(2)
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537504

Nogueira and Others v Westminster: UTLC 29 Aug 2014

UTLC LANDLORD AND TENANT – service charges – First-tier Tribunal finding works had been carried out to a reasonable standard on the assumption the lessor would fully comply with undertakings to carry out works to remedy defects – whether appropriate to accept such undertakings and to proceed on basis works in effect had been carried out to a reasonable standard – whether instead Tribunal should have made findings (on a global or individual basis) regarding deductions to be made from charges otherwise payable – terms for dispensation from consultation requirements

[2014] UKUT 327 (LC)
Bailii
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537497

Kosta v Carnwath and Others: UTLC 2 Jul 2014

LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT – price payable – Leasehold Reform Act 1967 section 9(1A) – assessment of an element required in the calculation of price namely the value at the valuation date of the existing lease on the statutory assumptions – relativity of that value to freehold vacant possession value – tenant relying upon evidence of a statistical study by way of a hedonic regression analysis of many market transactions in 1987 to 1991 – landlord relying upon graphs published by RICS – appeal dismissed.

[2014] UKUT 319 (LC)
Bailii
Leasehold Reform Act 1967 9(1A)
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537495

82 Portland Place (Freehold) Ltd v Howard De Walden Estates Ltd: UTLC 8 Sep 2014

UTLC LEASEHOLD ENFRANCHISEMENT – collective enfranchisement – whether tenants who were not parties to initial notice subsequently became participating tenants – deed of adherence – relativity – benefit of the Act – whether a purchaser’s margin to be deducted from aggregated leasehold values – appeal allowed in part

[2014] UKUT 133 (LC)
Bailii
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537498

Queensbridge Investment Ltd v 61 Queens Gate Freehold Ltd: UTLC 6 Oct 2014

UTLC Leasehold enfranchisement – collective enfranchisement – leaseback – effect of grant of new leases by freeholder after determination of disputed terms of leaseback by LVT – whether nominee purchaser entitled to insist on leasebacks – ss.24 and 35 and Schedule 9, Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993.

Martin Rodger QC, Deputy President
[2014] UKUT 437 (LC)
Bailii
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537509

Fisher, Re Park Crescent Mews West: UTLC 10 Sep 2014

UTLC FAIR RENT – operation of capping provisions where landlord no longer provides services previously included within the rent but not constituting ‘variable sums’ – section 70 Rent Act 1977 – Rent Act (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999

[2014] UKUT 402 (LC)
Bailii
Rent Act 1977 70, Rent Act (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant, Housing

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537501

Elim Court RTM Co Ltd v Avon Freeholds Ltd: UTLC 10 Sep 2014

UTLC Landlord and Tenant – right to manage – whether initial notice must specify that RTM Company’s articles of association are available for inspection on a Saturday or Sunday -section 78(5)(b), Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002 – signature by a corporate secretary – whether notice invalid if section 44, Companies Act 2006 not complied with – whether RTM claim defeated by omission to serve claim notice on intermediate landlord

[2014] UKUT 397 (LC)
Bailii
England and Wales

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.537500

Spencer’s Case: 1583

An assignee of a lease will take both the benefit and burden of the covenants in the lease provided that there is privity of estate as between the person enforcing the covenant and the person against whom enforcement is sought, and the covenant touches and concerns the land.

[1583] 5 Co Rep 16a, [1583] EWHC KB J53
Bailii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – London Diocesan Fund and others v Avonridge Property Company Ltd and Phithwa HL 1-Dec-2005
The defendant had taken on a lease of a parade of shops, and sub-let each shop for a full premium at a nominal rent. It sought to limit its own liability to pay the head rent by limiting the covenant in the sub-leases to pay the head rent to the . .
Cited – Edlington Properties Limited v J H Fenner and Co Limited CA 22-Mar-2006
The landlord had assigned the reversion of the lease. There was an outstanding dispute with the tenant defendant who owed arrears of rent, but sought to set these off against a claim for damages for the landlord’s failure to construct the factory in . .
Cited – Rhone and Another v Stephens HL 17-Mar-1994
A house was divided, the house being retained along with the roof over the cottage, and giving a covenant to repair the roof on behalf of the owner of the house. The cottage owner sought to enforce the covenant against a later owner of the house. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.195881

Cox v Bishop: 1857

The lease was assigned to a man of straw.
Held: The covenants in the lease could not be enforced against an equitable assignee of the lease who had entered into possession. The covenants were not enforceable because there was no privity of contract or estate between the lessee and the assignee.

[1857] 44 ER 604, (1857) 8 De G and J 276
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Rhone and Another v Stephens HL 17-Mar-1994
A house was divided, the house being retained along with the roof over the cottage, and giving a covenant to repair the roof on behalf of the owner of the house. The cottage owner sought to enforce the covenant against a later owner of the house. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 22 December 2021; Ref: scu.260252

JBW Group Ltd v Westminster City Council: CA 12 Mar 2010

The tenant had applied to the landlord for consent to assign certain leases. The court had declared the right to exercise break clauses in certain leases as lost. The court had found the right to be lost after the assignment of the leases by the original tenant, that the exercise of a break clauses limited to the named original tenant, would not make sense if it could be exercised when it was no longer in possession.
Held: The tenant’s appeal failed. ‘the right of a landlord or a tenant to bring a tenancy to an end by notice is an incident of the relationship of landlord and tenant’ and ‘provision for a former tenant to bring a lease to an end at a time when the lease is not vested in them would be extraordinary, even if technically possible.’ This was consistent with established authority. The original tenant had lost its right to break on assigning the lease.

Sedley, Dyson, Etherton LJJ
[2010] EWCA Civ 395, [2010] L and TR 10, [2010] 17 EG 95, [2010] NPC 48
Bailii
Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Olympia and York Canary Wharf Ltd v Oil Property Investments Ltd CA 1994
A landlord could properly refuse to consent to the assignment of a lease back to an original tenant in circumstances where the parties accepted that, if there was a re-assignment, the original tenant could exercise a right conferred on it alone as . .
Cited – Equinox Industrial (GP2) Limited, Equinox Industrial (Nominee) Limited v Sketchley Limited ChD 10-Jan-2003
The tenant sought to exercise a break clause following assignment and subsequent revesting of the original lease in it. In the relevant clause the tenant meant only Sketchley plc and not its successors in title or its assigns. The claimants . .
Cited – Max Factor Ltd v Wesleyan Assurance Society CA 1996
A break clause was mutual but contained a proviso making it clear ‘for the avoidance of doubt’ that the lessor’s right to determine the term ceased if the lessee assigned its interest in the lease prior to the expiration of the tenth year of the . .
Cited – Wordsley Brewery v Halford 1903
A notice to quit was invalid when it was served by the original lessor who had, prior to the service of the notice, granted a concurrent lease. . .
Cited – Stait v Fenner 1912
The lease to Fenner contained a break clause. The lease was legally assigned to X and then to Y. Y then agreed to assign back to Fenner (but no formal assignment was entered). Fenner then ‘assigned’ to Z (the contract saying that he was not obliged . .
Cited – Centrovincial Estates plc v Bulk Storage Ltd 1983
In a lease, the term ‘original tenant’ was to refer to the person to whom the lease had originally been granted. . .
Cited – Harbour Estates Limited v HSBC Bank Plc ChD 15-Jul-2004
The lease contained a break clause. The parties disputed whether the benefit of the clause was personal to the orginal lessee, or whether it touched and concerned the land, and therefore the benefit of it passed with the land.
Held: The . .
Cited – Selous Street Properties v Oronel ChD 1984
The tenant had made unauthorised alterations to the premises by the construction of some toilets, in breach of covenant. The position was later regularised with a licence from the landlord, reciting that the lessee had made alterations to the . .
Cited – City of London Corporation v Fell 1993
The benefit and burden of a break clause in a lease will ordinarily pass with the reversion or the term, as ‘touching and concerning’ the respective estates of the landlord and the tenant and as conditions of the enjoyment of those estates. . .
Cited – Guys’n’Dolls v Sade Bros CA 1984
. .
Cited – Kumar v Dunning and Another CA 15-Apr-1987
The court considered the effect of section 62 of the 1925 Act.
Sir Nicholas Browne-Wilkinson V-C said: ‘The main intention of Section 62 was to provide a form of statutory shorthand rendering it unnecessary to include such words expressly in . .
Cited – Bass Holdings Ltd v Morton Music Ltd CA 1987
The tenant had the option to take a further lease on giving written notice of their desire ‘if it shall have . . performed and observed the several stipulations on its part to be performed and observed up to the date of [the notice]’. The question . .
Cited – Allied London Investments Ltd v Hambro Life Assurance Ltd (No 2) ChD 1984
The lessors sued the original lessees for rent due under the lease after the term had been assigned to another. The lessors had given a licence to assign and the licence contained a guarantee from a third party to the lessors that the assignee would . .
Cited – Hua Chaio Commercial Bank v Chiaphua Industries PC 1987
The landlord had granted a lease, under which the tenant paid a security deposit on the signing of the lease. The deposit was returnable on the expiration of the term provided that there was no breach of any of it terms and conditions on the part of . .
Appeal from – JBW Group Ltd v Westminster City Council QBD 3-Nov-2009
The claimants acted as certificated bailiffs collecting sums due to the defendant Council on the issue of warrants of execution. The contract was terminated, and the parties now sought a decision as to costs incurred by the claimants in respect of . .
Leave – JBW Group Ltd v Westminster City Council (Leave) CA 12-Mar-2010
Application for leave to appeal – granted. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.408595

Hart v Windsor: CexC 1843

‘There is no contract, still less a condition, implied by law on the demise of real property only, that it is fit for the purpose for which it is let.’

Parke B
(1844) 12 M and W 68, [1843] EWHC Exch J55, [1843] EngR 31, (1843) 152 ER 1114
Bailii, Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Southwark London Borough Council v Mills/Tanner; Baxter v Camden London Borough Council HL 21-Oct-1999
Tenants of council flats with ineffective sound insulation argued that the landlord council was in breach of the covenant for quiet enjoyment in their tenancy agreements.
Held: A landlord’s duty to allow quiet enjoyment does not extend to a . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.186073

Lormor Ltd v Glasgow City Council: SCS 26 Sep 2014

Extra Division – Inner House – Opinion – the Court was asked – whether, in order to prevent tacit relocation, the tenant of lands exceeding two acres in extent which are let from year to year (including lands occupied by tacit relocation) requires to give not less than 6 months’ notice of termination, or whether not less than forty days’ notice will suffice for that purpose.

Lord Menzies
[2014] ScotCS CSIH – 80
Bailii

Scotland, Landlord and Tenant

Updated: 21 December 2021; Ref: scu.537046