A house was let to the defendant as a yearly tenant ‘commencing on May 19 instant’, and on 17th November the landlord served a notice to quit ‘on 19th May next’.
Held: It related to a point of time which was held to be common to both dates and was effective since the days were contiguous. Linley LJ said that a special rule applied for determining periodic tenancies at comon law.
A L Smith LJ, doubting this, said: ‘the plaintiff has only himself to blame for the difficulties he is in in this case. Had he added the words which are very ordinarily inserted in a notice to quit, ‘or at the expiration of the year of your tenancy, which shall expire next after the end of one half-year from the service of this notice,’ and which are inserted to avoid such a point as that now taken, all would have been in order; but the words are not there. If the notice to quit in this case had been for May 20 or 21 or any later day I should have had no doubt but that it was a bad notice; and I own that the inclination of my opinion is that the present notice is bad because it does not expire upon the last day of some year of the tenancy; but, as Lord Halsbury and Lindley L.J. are of opinion that, inasmuch as this was a full six months’ notice given to quit upon the anniversary of the day upon which the tenancy commenced, it is good, though the tenancy expired at midnight the day before, I yield to what they say, and will not differ from them, and hold that this unmeritorious technicality must prevail; and I content myself with expressing what I have said.’
AL Smith LJ, Lord Halsbury
[1895] 1 QB 378, 64 LJQB 200, [1895] UKLawRpKQB 236
Commonlii
England and Wales
Cited by:
Distinguished – Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star Assurance HL 21-May-1997
Minor Irregularity in Break Notice Not Fatal
Leases contained clauses allowing the tenant to break the lease by serving not less than six months notice to expire on the third anniversary of the commencement date of the term of the lease. The tenant gave notice to determine the leases on 12th . .
Distinguished – Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star Assurance Co Ltd CA 19-Jul-1995
A notice exercising a tenant’s or landlord’s right to break a lease, must be given precisely as required by the break clause in the lease.
Nourse LJ said that the last moment of time on one day is not the same as the first moment of time on . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 14 October 2021; Ref: scu.185076
