A landlord gave notice to quit to a tenant subject to an assured shorthold tenancy.
Held: The notice did not include the instructions and advice required by the Regulations, and so could not be said to be substantially in the same form. The notice was accordingly invalid. It had been quite wrong of the judge to continue to deal with the matter under the accelerated possession procedure without the opportunity for the tenant to make his case, when it had been made clear that possible grounds of objection existed.
Nourse LJ said: ‘in 1988 an assured shorthold tenancy was both novel in concept and notably less advantageous to tenants than the tenancy protected by the Rent Acts which had for many years been the means of tenure by which residential properties of low rateable value were generally held. Moreover, the persons who were likely to be offered tenancies of such properties were also likely to be unable to assess for themselves the full legal and practical consequences of taking them. In the circumstances, the three bullet points on whose omission Mr Buttimore primarily relies, in particular, I would say, the exhortation to get prior legal advice from a solicitor or a Citizens’ Advice Bureau and the statement that the giving of the notice by the landlord does not commit the tenant to take the tenancy, can only be treated as part of the substance of the notice. They do not fall into the same category as the notes which were omitted from the section 25 notice in Tegerdine v Brooks. Without them, a section 20 notice is not in substance to the same effect as a notice in Form 7.’
and’What, then, is the substance of a notice under section 20? Its essential purpose is to tell the proposed tenant that the tenancy is to be an assured shorthold tenancy, with the consequences specified in paras 2 and 3 of the Form 7, in particular that ‘the landlord may have the right to repossession if he wants.’ Although we are now familiar with the notion that an assured shorthold tenancy gives the tenant a very limited security of tenure, that would not have been the case in 1988.’
The court remarked on the importance of the presence on the form of the reference to advice, including legal advice, and the statement that the giving of the notice did not commit the tenant to take the tenancy.
Judges:
Nourse LJ
Citations:
Times 20-Apr-2000, [2000] 2 EGLR 40
Statutes:
Housing Act 1988 20, Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) Regulations 1997 (1997 No 194), Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) Regulations 1988 (1988 No 2203)
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Ravenseft Properties Ltd v Hall; White v Chubb; similar CA 19-Dec-2001
Parties appealed decisions as whether assured shorthold tenancy notices were valid despite errors.
Held: If, notwithstanding errors or omissions, the substance of the notice was sufficiently clear to the reasonable person reading it, then the . .
Cited – Kahlon v Isherwood CA 19-May-2011
Tenant’s appeal against order for possession. The question arose wheher a noice remained defective even where the information omitted was known to the tenant. Patten LJ said: ‘Relevance or materiality has to be assessed by reference to the purpose . .
Cited – Ayannuga v Swindells CA 6-Nov-2012
The tenant appealed against refusal of penalties impose for the non-securing of a tenants deposit. The deposit had been secured, and the court had found that the landlord had substantially complied with the notice requirements by matters in the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant, Housing
Updated: 05 May 2022; Ref: scu.83374