The tenant complained both that her tenancy was a periodic assured tenancy acquired on succession, and that the termination notice given to her was invalid. LSP had granted an assured shorthold tenancy to C, and J was her statutory successor. The notice to terminate gave no date on which the tenancy was to end, but was said to expire ‘at the end of the period of your tenancy which will end after the expiry of two months from service’ of the notice.
Held: J was the statutory successor, but held only an assured shorthold. A notice of possession had to state the date on which possession was required, which had to be the last day of the tenancy, and that must be not less than two months before the notice was served. The notice had referred to the last day with sufficient specificity because it could readily be ascertained by calculation.
Kennedy LJ said: ‘Because of the wording of section 21(4) if an actual date is to be given in the notice it must be ‘the last day of the period of the tenancy’ and there is an obvious risk of a minor arithmetical error giving rise to the argument that the notice is invalid which no doubt is why the printed form suggests as a possible form of wording that the notice will expire ‘at the end of the period of your tenancy which will end after the expiry of two months from the service upon you of this notice’.’
In an assured tenancy, proceedings should not be issued until the notice period had properly expired. In this case they were premature.
Judges:
Kennedy LJ, Phillips and Schiemann LJJ
Citations:
[1996] 48 EG 154, [1996] 28 HLR 877
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – McDonald and Another v Fernandez and Another CA 19-Jul-2003
The landlord served a notice to terminate a shorthold tenancy saying that he required possession on a certain day. The tenancy had been a periodic tenancy, and the date was not the last day of a period of the tenancy.
Held: The Act was . .
Cited – Notting Hill Housing Trust v Roomus CA 29-Mar-2006
The landlord had served a notice to quit on his tenant. The notice specified that possession would be required ‘at the end of your period of your tenancy’ It was objected that the notice was ineffective.
Held: The notice must be interpreted to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 30 May 2022; Ref: scu.228509
