The council’s tenant had unlawfully secured assignment of a secure tenancy to the defendant. The council sought possession.
Held: A secure tenancy granted by an authority pursuant to a misrepresentation by the tenant is nonetheless valid. The statutory list of grounds for recovering possession was explicit and exhaustive. The present basis of claim was not included, and the council could not recover possession. If the situation was to be remedied, that would be for Parliament. The judge had relied upon Solle v Butcher but that case had been overruled. Coke said ‘It is a maxim in the common law, that a statute made in the affirmative, without any negative expressed or implied, does not take away the common law’, but the combined effect of sections 82 and 84 was just such a negative enactment.
Lord Justice Dyson, Lord Justice Mummery The Right Honourable Sir Charles Mantell
[2006] EWCA Civ 340, Times 19-Apr-2006, [2006] 1 WLR 1303
Bailii
Housing Act 1985 882
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Killick v Roberts CA 1991
The landlord claimed that the tenancy had expired by effluxion of time. The tenant alleged that the tenancy was a protected tenancy and that, since no written notice had been served on him pursuant to Case 13, he was a statutory tenant entitled to . .
Not followed – 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 – Great Peace Shipping Ltd v Tsavliris (International) Ltd CA 14-Oct-2002
The parties contracted for the hire of a ship. They were each under a mistaken impression as to its position, and a penalty became payable. The hirer claimed that the equitable doctrine of mutual mistake should forgive him liability.
Held: . .
Cited – Nutt and Another v Read and Another CA 3-Nov-1999
The parties had contracted for the letting of land and transfer as in personam of a chalet erected upon it. The parties having completed the deals could not then agree what was to have been paid.
Held: The first agreement was void for common . .
mentioned – Bell v Lever Brothers Ltd HL 15-Dec-1931
Bell was director and chairman of Niger, a subsidiary of Lever Brothers Ltd who dismissed him, offering and paying andpound;30,000 compensation. Lever then discovered that Mr Bell had made secret profits at the expense of Niger for which he could . .
Cited – Kay, Gorman, etc v London Borough of Lambeth, London and Quadrant Housing Trust CA 20-Jul-2004
The defendant local authority had licenced houses to a housing trust, which in turn granted sub-licences to the claimants who were applicants for housing under homelessness provisions, and who now asserted that they became secure tenants of the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Birmingham City Council v Qasim and Others CA 20-Oct-2009
The council argued that the defendant was not a tenant granted to him as a secure tenancy since he had not been granted the tenancy in accordance with its policies. An employee had manipulated the Council’s system to grant tenancies to bypass the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Housing
Leading Case
Updated: 09 November 2021; Ref: scu.239750
