The lease demised property ‘from the 24th day of June 1985 for a term of twenty years’ with a break clause requiring six month’s notice. The break notice was mistakenly calculated from the anniversary of the lease, not the anniversary of the term. At first instance, the lease was held not to have been validly terminated.
Held: The notice would have been read as indicating a desire to break the lease on the effective date, and the error did not operate to defeat it. One of the main purposes of Part II of the 1954 Act is to enable business tenants, where there is no good reason for their eviction, to continue in occupation after the expiration of their contractual tenancies. It is not a purpose of the Act to enable a business tenant who has chosen to determine his contractual tenancy to continue in occupation on terms different from those of that tenancy.
Citations:
[1998] 1 WLR 1583, [1998] EWCA Civ 1091, [1998] 2 EGLR 73, [1998] L and TR 230, [1998] 3 All ER 596
Links:
Statutes:
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 26(2)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Garston v Scottish Widows’ Fund and Life Assurance Society ChD 1996
A lease allowed a break clause to be exercised on six month’s notice. The notice given was calculated by reference to the wrong date, the date of the lease, and not the term contained in it.
Held: The mistake was not sufficiently clear to . .
Cited – Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star Assurance HL 21-May-1997
Minor Irregularity in Break Notice Not Fatal
Leases contained clauses allowing the tenant to break the lease by serving not less than six months notice to expire on the third anniversary of the commencement date of the term of the lease. The tenant gave notice to determine the leases on 12th . .
Cited – Commercial Properties Ltd v Wood CA 1967
A lease of commercial premises continued automatically under the Act. It became a monthly tenancy with rent payable in advance at the beginning of each mointh. The landlord served a notice under s25 on 4 October 1965 to terminate the tenancy on . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 19 November 2022; Ref: scu.144570