The court considered the meaning of ‘adjoining occupiers’ The tenant suggested that the word ‘ adjoining’ should be read literally so that the premises must be contiguous in the sense of physically joining, or being co-terminous with the holding of the tenant whose conduct was complained of. It was submitted that adjoining did not mean neighbouring.
Held: The submissions failed. Dunn LJ (with whom Wood J agreed) accepted as an accurate statement of the law a passage in the 10th Edition of Megarry on the Rent Acts: ‘The word ‘adjoining’ has been construed as meaning ‘contiguous’ so that the occupants of a second floor flat have been held not to be ‘adjoining occupiers’ to the ground floor flat beneath them. But this seems too strict a view; for one meaning of the word is ‘neighbouring’ and all that context seems to require is that the premises of the adjoining occupier should be near enough to be affected by the tenant’s conduct on the demised premises’ Wood J added that: ‘In my judgment the meaning of the word ‘adjoining’ is not restricted to the meaning of ‘contiguous’. Each case must depend on the facts as found by the judge trying the action. It is a question of degree. There may be other ways of approaching the issue, but it may be useful to consider it in this way; namely whether the relevant premises are sufficiently close or related, so that the behaviour or conduct of the tenant of the one affects the access to, or occupation or enjoyment of the other by its occupier.’
Judges:
Dunn LJ, Wood J
Citations:
[1984] QB 140, [1984] 2 All ER 635, [1984] 3 WLR 606
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Northampton Borough Council v Lovatt and Another CA 11-Nov-1997
The local authority had obtained a possession order against the defendant tenants because of the behaviour of the tenants’ children as ‘conduct which is a nuisance or annoyance to neighbours’ The question on appeal was whether behaviour which . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant, Housing
Updated: 28 May 2022; Ref: scu.183138