The landlord brought an action for non-payment of rent. The tenant sought to set off a failure by the landlord to repair the building of which his flat was part and which failure had caused him loss. The landlord said that it had no express duty to repair the building.
Held: The court refused to accept any implication of a duty at common law on a landlord to repair a property under a lease except where it was explicitly imposed. Slade LJ said: ‘for the purpose of considering whether the suggested contractual obligation falls to be implied in the present case, we can see no justification for applying a test more favourable to the defendant than the test applicable to the construction of any ordinary commercial lease of unfurnished premises or land which does not fall into a special category.’
Stephenson LJ, Kerr LJ, Slade Lj
[1983] EWCA Civ 1, [1984] 3 WLR 630, [1985] 1 QB 688, [1983] 48 PandCR 42, [1983] 267 EG 762, [1984] 3 All ER 144
Bailii
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Barnes v City of London Real Property Co Ltd 1918
The landlord defendants had let various sets of rooms imposing on the tenants an obligation to pay a stated additional rent specifically for the cleaning of rooms by a house-keeper to be provided for the purpose. The agreements placed no express . .
Cited – Edmonton Corporation v Knowles (WM) and Son Ltd 1962
The court was able to imply from a provision in a lease obliging the tenant to pay to the landlords ‘the cost . . of painting in a workmanlike manner every third year of the term all outside wood and metal work and other external parts of the . .
Cited – Liverpool City Council v Irwin HL 31-Mar-1976
The House found it to be an implied term of a tenancy agreement that the lessor was to be responsible for repairing and lighting the common parts of the building of which the premises formed part. In analysing the different types of contract case in . .
Cited – Lister v Romford Ice and Cold Storage Co Ltd HL 1957
An employer may be civilly responsible for his employee’s breach even though it constitutes a crime, and a skilled employee in general owed a contractual duty of reasonable care to his employer in the performance of his employment. In determining . .
Cited – Jones v Pritchard ChD 6-Feb-1908
The grant of an easement ordinarily carries with it the grant of such ancillary rights as are reasonably necessary to its exercise or enjoyment. However the grant of a right of way over a driveway cannot place on the servient owner the obligation to . .
Cited – Holden v White CA 1982
Apart from any special local custom or express contract, the owner of a servient tenement is not under any obligation to the owner of the dominant tenement to execute any repairs necessary to ensure the enjoyment of the easement by the dominant . .
Cited – Hargroves, Aronson and Co v Hartopp CA 1905
The tenants of a building of which the defendants were landlords sought damages after a rainwater gutter became stopped up and the defendants failed to clear it out for a few days after receiving notice of the stoppage.
Held: The landlords . .
Cited – Cockburn v Smith 1924
The owner of a block of flats let one to the tenant, but kept the roof and guttering in his own possession and control. The guttering became defective and the landlord failed to remedy it after notice. Rainwater escaped and caused damage to the . .
Cited – Hilton v James Smith and Sons (Norwood) Ltd CA 1979
A landlord may be under a positive duty to his tenants to prevent obstruction of a right of way. . .
Cited – Booth v Thomas CA 1926
A landlord, whose predecessor in title had enclosed a natural stream in an artificial culvert which was incapable of retaining it, was held liable to the tenant for injury suffered by the demised premises as a result of the outflow of water . .
Cited by:
Cited – Adami v Lincoln Grange Management Limited CA 17-Dec-1997
No General Duty on Landlord to Repair Structure
The plaintiff was a tenant of an apartment in a block. He appealed a ruling that there was no term implied into his lease imposing on the landlord a duty to maintain the structure of the building. The lease contained service charge provisions, and . .
Cited – Barrett v Lounova (1982) Ltd CA 1990
In a tenancy agreement for one year and thereafter from month to month, the tenant covenanted to do all the inside repairs and to leave the inside in good repair, order and condition at the expiry of the tenancy.
Held: The decision of the . .
Cited – Bennett Properties v H and S Engineering QBD 14-Oct-1998
The parties had been landlord and tenant and the lease was to be renewed for a second time. They negotiated and ageed terms for the next lease, including particularly a new rent, but the tenant did not execute the new lease. The landlord had . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 10 October 2021; Ref: scu.245280
