The building had been constructed in 1869. It was used as a house on three floors with a basement. The ground floor was later used as a shoe repairing shop and then as a betting shop with living accommodation still used for dwelling purposes in the rest of the building.
Held: The tenant’s appeal against refusal of enfranchisement succeeded. The building was ‘a house reasonably so called’ within section 2(1). The living accommodation appears, on one view, to have been 75% of the floor area of the building. Only one floor was occupied as a shop. The dominant use of the building was for living in. It was still a house. It was within the original policy of the legislation, even though part of it was used for shop purposes.
Lord Denning MR said: ‘there have been many statutes which have used the word ‘house’ without defining it’ and that ‘the courts have given it a wide interpretation’. He also observed that, while he would not seek to define the effect of the words ‘reasonably so called’, he did not think, for example, that ‘a tower block of flats would reasonably be called a ‘house”. The words ‘reasonably so called’ are intended to be words of limitation.
Salmon LJ explained that the words ‘reasonably so called’ were necessary to exclude buildings such as ‘the Ritz Hotel . . Rowton House and a large purpose built block of flats’. The fact that a building could reasonably be called something other than a house would not mean that it could not also reasonably be called a house.
Lord Denning MR, Salmon LJ, Cross LJ
[1970] QB 663
Leasehold Enfranchisement Act 1967 2
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Wolf v Crutchley ChD 23-Oct-1970
The plaintiff came to own two adjoining houses, let on long leases at low rents. She sought to use the legislation to enfranchise one property. The landlord objected saying that the houses had been used as guesthouses, and that a door had been . .
Cited – Malekshad v Howard de Walden Estates Limited HL 5-Dec-2002
A house and an adjoining building had been first demised under one lease, then separated vertically. Two separate residential properties now existed.
Held: The vertical division meant that the two houses could not be enfranchised as one under . .
Cited – Malekshad v Howard De Walden Estates Limited CA 23-May-2001
The applicant sought the leasehold enfranchisement of two leasehold properties. They were contained in separate leases, but the property had been treated as one for some time. A part of one property extended under part of the other. The claim was . .
Approved – Tandon v Trustees of Spurgeons Homes HL 1982
Tenants sought enfranchisement of their properties, but 75% of building consisted of a shop, and only 25% was living accomodation.
Held: The tenants were entitled to buy the freehold. The question whether a building is a house ‘reasonably so . .
Cited – Grosvenor Estates Ltd v Prospect Estates Ltd CA 21-Nov-2008
grosvenor_prospectCA2008
The tenant under a long lease sought enfranchisement. The landlord denied that it was a ‘house’ reasonably so called within the 1967 Act. The building had been constructed as a house, but was now substantially used as offices. They could only be . .
Cited – Day and Another v Hosebay Ltd; Lexgorge Ltd v Howard de Walden Estates Ltd etc CA 1-Jul-2010
day_hosebayA10
Properties had been built as substantial single dwellings. Later they had been converted into separate dwellings and let accordingly. The tenants sought to acquire the freeholds under the 1967 Act. Though required by the lease to use the properties . .
Cited – Magnohard Ltd v Cadogan and Another CA 4-May-2012
magnohardCA2012
The parties disputed whether a building was a house ‘reasonably so called’ within the 1987 Act. The instant building was designed or adapted for living in, and was divided horizontally into six flats or maisonettes, and included shops.
Held: . .
Cited – Day and Another v Hosebay Ltd SC 10-Oct-2012
The Court considered the provisions for leasehold enfranchisement now that the residence requirement had been removed by the 2002 Act, and in particular the extent to which, at all, it had allowed enfranchisement to be available to commercial . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 17 September 2021; Ref: scu.183471