The claimant had granted a secure weekly tenancy of a maisonette to Mrs Campbell, which she occupied with her husband and children. Mrs Campbell then left the maisonette, leaving the husband in occupation. The husband made a proposal to the claimant whose substance was that he should be given the tenancy of the maisonette, but the claimant refused, saying that once Mrs Campbell was re-housed it would require vacant possession. Mrs Campbell was re-housed, although not by the claimant, and she then wrote to the claimant saying that she was giving up the maisonette and asking what she should do with the keys. The claimant’s response was that she must empty the maisonette of her possessions before returning the keys and that until such times as the keys were returned she would be liable for the rent. Her response was that she could not do this because her husband remained in possession and had changed the locks. She enclosed her own keys with her letter. She asked to be given the opportunity to remove her own possessions from the maisonette once her husband had vacated it, following which the claimant wrote to the husband asking him to leave. He did not, and so two months later the claimant sued him for possession.
Held: A wife who is a sole tenant has the full right to determine a tenancy even though her husband occupied the house at all material times, and even though this operated to deny him rights he would have against her under the Act. There had been nothing equivocal about the wife’s or the claimant’s acts and there had been an implied surrender of the wife’s tenancy to the claimant. Lord Justice Scott: ‘If both tenant and landlord are unequivocally treating a tenancy as at an end the law has no business to insist on its continuance.’
Judges:
Lord Justice Thorpe
Citations:
Times 01-Apr-1999, [1999] EWCA Civ 1030, [1999] 1 WLR 1279, [1999] L and TR 425, (2000) 32 HLR 100
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – London Borough of Brent v Sharma and Vyas CA 1992
A tenancy of a flat was granted to Miss Vyas. She occupied it with Mr Sharma. They later married. She moved out and was given the tenancy of a council house elsewhere. She then wrote to Brent, the landlords, to say she was no longer sharing with Mr . .
Cited by:
Cited – Ealing Family Housing Association Ltd v McKenzie CA 10-Oct-2003
The defendant and his wife separated when she left the flat they shared. She accepted a new tenancy of other premises. The landlord claimed possession of the flat, saying that the tenancy had ended.
Held: There was no express surrender within . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant, Family
Updated: 05 December 2022; Ref: scu.145945