Whilst the facts of this case concern a commercial lease the decision has equal relevance to residential leases. The law on surrender was set out by the judges in the following way:
[...]It is well known that notices under section 21(4)(a) of the Housing Act 1988 must give notice to a tenant that “after a date specified … being the last day of a period of the tenancy … possession of the dwelling-house is required”. In Church Commissioners v Meya [2006] EWCA Civ 821, the Court of Appeal made a close reading of section 5 of the Act and held that it should be construed as reading that the length of the periods of a statutory periodic tenancy created by that section “are the same as [the periods] for which rent was last payable under the fixed term tenancy.”
In this case a property was let from 18 August 2007 to 17 August 2008 with a rent of £1,200 payable on the 15 August 2007. A further tenancy was granted for another 12 months from 18 August 2008 to 17 August 2009, rent being payable bi-monthly in advance starting on the 11 August 2008. After August 2008 the tenancy continued on a periodic basis. A notice under section 21(4)(a) was served on 1 April 2010 seeking possession “after 17 June 2010 or, if later, the day on which a complete period of your tenancy expires next after the end of two months from the service of this notice.”
[...]This case was one of a number of small claims cases for unpaid rent claimed by the landlord, Mrs Zafar, against a former tenant, Mr Goddard, who had left the property before the end of the fixed term. In the first set of proceedings the tenant counterclaimed for disrepair and raised as a defence that he had never been served with a notice conplying with section 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. The Judge who dealt with those proceedings found as a fact that
[...]Robot Arenas had purchased the set that had been used to film the television series “Robot Wars”. It was proposing to use it for a world championship version of the show but this event was cancelled due to poor sales. The set equipment was in storage at an RAF base which had been licensed for a short period by them but they had failed to take the material away at the end of their licence.
The current owner who had purchased the property threw them away when clearing out the building. The claim for damages was for the wrongful destruction of the Set and the amount claimed was £344,650, on the basis that the Set was unique and there was no market from which an alternative set could be acquired.
[...]
The landlord owned a detached bungalow with a conservatory attached to the rear of the property, which the landlord had let on a series of six annual furnished shorthold tenancies for the period of 21 October 1999 until 31 December 2007. Each assured shorthold tenancy (AST) covered the whole of the property including the conservatory. However, given that the tenants did not want to use the landlord's furniture that came with the property, it was agreed that the landlord would store it in the conservatory. Each tenant paid the landlord directly their "share" of the rent. However, the tenancy agreement provided for a single rent per month for the property of £1,200 for which each joint tenant was jointly and severally liable. The local authority had treated the property as being a single tenancy so that the tenants were liable for council tax. There was council tax outstanding, and the local authority decided to pursue the landlord for it on the basis that the property had been a house in multiple occupation (HMO) since 1 April 2002.
The landlord appealed to the Valuation Tribunal, who held that
[...]In 2005 a tenant with an assured shorthold tenancy paid a deposit of £1, 000. In November 2007, the landlord granted the tenant a further one-year tenancy. This tenancy also required payment of a £1, 000 deposit, but the landlord kept the original deposit and was not paid another. In June 2008 the landlord served a Housing Act 1988 section 8 notice seeking possession because of arrears of rent. The tenant said that as the landlord had failed to protect her deposit, she wished any compensation for this to be offset against the rent arrears. Four months rent was unpaid at the date of the possession hearing.
A District Judge held that
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The council identified and found category 1 hazards within a rented property owned by the landlord which all related to a failure of the boiler and consequential lack of heating and hot water and also to exposed electrical wiring. The council elected to take emergency remedial action and the landlord appealed this. The Residential Property Tribunal decided
The landlord granted this elderly tenant a weekly tenancy of a single room with shared use of bathroom and kitchen at a rent of £60. In 2007 the landlord informed the tenant that he was going to convert the property into flats. In April 2008 the landlord gave the tenant notice to terminate the tenancy, but this notice did not comply with the requirements of the Housing Act 1988. In May the gas and water supplies were disconnected. In June the tenant obtained an injunction against the landlord, requiring him to reinstate the utility supplies. The landlord ignored this and building work continued. Within a week the property was a shell and unsafe. The tenant was forced from the property and slept at friends’ homes until the local authority rehoused him. The tenant’s possessions, which remained in his room, were removed and disposed of.
The judge found
[...]A small child drowned in a lake on a holiday park and the parents sought a breach of the Occupier’s Liability duty on the part of the park’s owners.
The pond was surrounded by wooden rails 2ft high beneath which was a wire fence which had been installed due to liaison with Environmental Health officers from the local authority following an incident in 2003. Bourne leisure had also provided specific warnings about the ponds and emphasised the risks these posed to unsupervised children.
It was alleged that an effective barrier should have been placed around the site, of about 1.1 metres high, as recommended by Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents in the case of domestic ponds, to prevent young children who might wander off unaccompanied from gaining access to the pond.
The court found
[...]The tenancy agreement with Mr and Mrs Goolamy contained the following rent review clause: “It is hereby mutually agreed that with effect from each anniversary of the commencement of the term hereby created (whether during the said term or during the currency of any subsequent statutory periodic tenancy) the yearly rent payable hereunder (and accordingly the periodic payments of rent) shall increase by five per cent.”
The question posed by this case is: “Does section 13(1)(a) of the Housing Act 1988 have the effect of enabling a landlord to seek to increase the rent payable under a statutory periodic tenancy beyond the levels contemplated in a rent review clause in the assured tenancy that preceded it, even though that clause purports to govern the position during the currency of both the assured tenancy and any subsequent statutory periodic tenancy?”.
The answer here is
[...]Terms in letting agreements relating to the payment of renewal commission and commision payable if a property was sold to the tenant were found, on the basis of the particular wording used, to be unfair under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) brought an action challenging the terms and conditions contained in the letting contracts used by an estate agency, Foxtons. The OFT said that the terms were unfair, and sought a declaration to this effect or an injunction in respect of two contracts. Shortly before the hearing, Foxtons stopped using the terms in question (the ‘old terms’) and started to use different terms (the ‘new terms’). Although some of the terms queried by the OFT have been removed, the question of the fairness of the old terms remained. Questions also arose as to the fairness of the new terms.
The clauses in respect of which the OFT took action were:
The local authority granted a non secure tenancy to a 16 year old girl under their duty to house her under the provisions of the Housing Act 1996. After complaints from the neighbours and the build up of rent arrears the council attempted to obtain possession of the property. The original district judge and, on appeal, the circuit judge allowed the possession order.
However, section 1(6) of the LPA prohibits minors from holding a legal estate in land and they would hold in equity. The tenant argued that according to paragraph 1(1) of Schedule 1 Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996 any attempt to grant a legal estate to a minor will result in the grantor holding the land on trust for the minor. It was further argued that not only should the local authority have served the notice on itself, it would be in breach of trust to serve the notice at all! The Council argued that they had created an equitable tenancy capable of being terminated.
The High Court held
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