Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star [1995]

The Landlord, Eagle Star, owned office premises in London which they leased to Mannai Investment Co Ltd. The lease contained a break clause which allowed the landlord to break the lease by serving “not less than six months notice in writing .. such notice to expire on the 3rd anniversary of the term commencement date”. The tenant gave notice to terminate the lease by serving two identical break notices. The notices were correct save that the termination date of the leases were stated as 12 January 1995 rather than 13 January 1995. The [break] clause did not require the tenant to use any particular form of words. He was simply required to use words which unambiguously conveyed a particular meaning, namely an intention to terminate the lease on January 13th.

HELD: The House of Lords concluded that the key test is whether the notice, when considered against its contextual setting, would unambiguously inform a reasonable recipient how and when it was to operate. If so, despite the error in the notice, termination should take effect. The House of Lords ruled that it was obvious to a reasonable recipient with knowledge of the lease and the third anniversary date, that the tenant wished to determine the lease on that date. A reasonable recipient would not have been perplexed by the minor error in the notices.

This case reverses previous decisions where an error of date in a notice would nullify the notice except in cases of obvious error and will mean that errors in the drafting of notices will not necessarily be fatal in the future.

Citation: Mannai Investment Co. Ltd. v. Eagle Star Insurance Co. Ltd [1995] 1 W.L.R. 1508.