St Ermins Property Company Ltd v Patel & Ors

A notice under section 4(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 must identify the contractual or continuation tenancy which the landlord seeks to terminate and must invite the tenant to surrender all property comprised in that tenancy. Separate notices directed to different parts of a single tenancy are ineffective where the tenancy continues in respect of the whole property. The landlord’s belief about the premises qualifying for protection, required by section 4(3), cannot validate an otherwise defective notice. Section 7(4)(b) protects proposals for a statutory tenancy from later differences about the dwelling-house; it does not cure a failure to identify the tenancy being terminated. The Mannai principle cannot cure notices which deliberately purport to do something different from the legally required act.

The tenants held 16 Minster Road under a single long tenancy at a low rent governed by Part I of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The property had been divided into two maisonettes, but the county court found that the whole property qualified for protection and that the tenancy continued under section 3(2)(a).

The landlord served two notices under section 4(1), one for each maisonette, and applied for terms of separate statutory tenancies. The recorder held the notices valid. The tenants appealed, raising whether notices could be effective where they related to parts of the premises comprised in the continuing tenancy.

The appeal was allowed and the landlord’s applications were dismissed. The notices did not terminate the continuing tenancy of the whole property.

1. Nature of the tenancy. The county court’s finding that the whole property qualified for protection brought the case within section 3(2)(a) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The continuation tenancy therefore remained a tenancy of the whole property, on the same rent and terms as before the term date.
2. Requirements of section 4. A notice under section 4(1) must identify the contractual or continuation tenancy which the landlord seeks to terminate. It must also invite the tenant to say whether he is willing to give up possession of all property comprised in that tenancy on the specified date. Neither notice, taken alone, satisfied those requirements. Reading them together could cure the identification and surrender defects, but could not cure the separate defect under section 4(3), because the combined notices asserted an untenable belief that each maisonette was separately occupied by all four tenants as a separate dwelling.
3. Qualifying premises and statutory-tenancy proposals. Section 4(3) requires the landlord to specify premises which he believes to be, or likely to be, the premises qualifying for protection. That is a subsidiary requirement and does not define the tenancy which section 4(1) permits the landlord to terminate. Section 7(4)(b) addresses the later difference between premises specified in statutory-tenancy proposals and the dwelling-house subsequently agreed or determined. It does not validate a notice that fails to identify the tenancy being terminated.
4. Section 3(2)(b). Sir Martin Nourse considered that section 3(2)(b) did not cut down the continuation of the tenancy as a whole, while Lord Justice Chadwick expressed the better view that, in a section 3(2)(b) case, the property then comprised in the continuation tenancy would be the premises qualifying for protection. The point was not necessary to the decision, and Lady Justice Arden expressed no view on it.
5. Mannai. The principle in Mannai Co Ltd v Eagle Star Life Assurance Co Ltd [1997] AC 749 could not assist. The notices did not contain an obvious mistaken date or equivalent error; they deliberately purported to serve two notices rather than the single notice required.

The appeal was allowed with costs, and the landlord’s applications were dismissed.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The present court allowed the tenants’ appeal and dismissed the landlord’s applications.
• Central London County Court: The recorder declared that the tenants qualified for protection in respect of the whole property and that the two notices were valid and effective.
• Court of Appeal (interlocutory appeal): The earlier appeal was allowed and the matter remitted for findings on occupation and related facts; the decision was reported at (1998) 75 P & CR 46.