A person went into possession of land under a contract to grant him a lease for 99 years, but no lease was ever granted.
Held: In the absence of a lease he was no more that a tenant at will, which tenancy could be determined at any time, but the agreement might lead a court of equity to grant an injunction to restrain the landlord exercising his rights. The effect was that the landlord would have no right at all of any kind to go to the court and demand possession, and no right had accrued to begin the period of limitation: ‘It seems to me evident that a person must have an effective right to make an entry and to recover possession of the land in order that the statute may begin to run. If th eargument for the plaintiff is correct, the trustees are to lose their property because thay did not enter at a time when they really could not enter with any effect, insamuch as a Court of equity would at once have decreed specific performance and put an end to any entry they might have made. It seems to me impossible to hold that this constitutes an entry within the meaning of the Act. It is, however, said that the plaintiff’s predecessaors became tenants at will, and, by virtue of section 7 the statute begand ti run after they were let into possession. I do not so read the section. As in the case of section 2, it seems to me that section 7 requires that there should shave been aneffective right of entry or action before the section can apply at at all. It provides at what time the right of entry or action shall be deemed to have accrued, but that ssumes that there is a ‘right’ of entry or action. In this case there was no such right, and therefore the statute did not run.’
Judges:
A L Smith LJ
Citations:
[1894] 2 QB 648, (1894) 10 The Times LR 573
Cited by:
Cited – Moses v Lovegrove CA 29-Apr-1952
The tenant had gone into possession under an oral agreement with a rent book. He ceased to pay rent or acknowledge the landlord’s right in 1938. In 1952 the landlord sought to recover possession, and now appealed a finding that the tenant had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.223192
