Liverpool City Council v Irwin: CA 1976

The court considered the nature and extent of the obligations of landlords of a building in multiple occupation to repair essential means of access.
Held: Lord Denning MR (dissenting) suggested that the court had power to imply a term if it was reasonable so to do, and held that the landlords were under an implied obligation to repair accordingly. Roskill and Ormrod LJJ held to the contrary. Roskill LJ said: ‘But I am afraid, with profound respect, I cannot agree with his view that it is open to us in this court at the present day to imply a term because subjectively or objectively we as individual judges think it will be reasonable so to do. It must be necessary, in order to make the contract work as well as reasonable so to do, before the court can write into a contract, as a matter of implication, some term which the parties have themselves, assumedly deliberately, omitted to do.’

Judges:

Lord Denning MR, Roskill and Ormrod LJJ

Citations:

[1976] QB 319

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

At CALiverpool City Council v Irwin HL 31-Mar-1976
The House found it to be an implied term of a tenancy agreement that the lessor was to be responsible for repairing and lighting the common parts of the building of which the premises formed part. In analysing the different types of contract case in . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Landlord and Tenant, Contract

Updated: 14 May 2022; Ref: scu.259562