Beanby Estates Ltd v The Egg Stores (Stamford Hill) Ltd

Where Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, section 23, applies to notices under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, service by registered or recorded delivery is effected when the notice is posted to the correct address. Actual receipt, late receipt, or non-receipt does not alter the deemed date of service. Interpretation Act 1978, section 7, does not qualify that result because section 23 expressly provides for service by registered post and establishes a distinct statutory method.

The rule allocates the risk of non-delivery to the addressee and promotes certainty. It applies equally to notices served by landlords and tenants. The resulting loss of part of a statutory period does not, without more, infringe Convention rights.

The defendant tenant occupied business premises under a lease protected by Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The claimant landlord posted a section 25 notice by recorded delivery on 7 January 2002. It was received on 9 January.

The tenant served a counter-notice and applied for a new tenancy. The county court held that service occurred on actual receipt, so the application was in time. The landlord appealed on a preliminary issue concerning the interaction between section 23 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, applied by section 66(4) of the 1954 Act, and section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978. The central issue was the deemed date of service of a notice sent by recorded delivery.

1. Appeal allowed. The section 25 notice was served on 7 January 2002, when it was posted by recorded delivery. The tenant’s application was therefore out of time.
2. Section 23 provides alternative primary methods of service, including personal service, leaving the notice at the last known place of abode or business, and sending it by registered or recorded delivery. The statutory scheme indicates that service occurs when the chosen method is completed. For postal service, that is the moment of posting.
3. The authorities, particularly Chiswell v Griffon Land and Estates Limited, Galinski v McHugh and Railtrack Plc v Gojra, supported treating receipt as irrelevant to service by a primary method. The contrary reasoning in Lex Service Plc v Johns did not justify departure from the conclusions reached in Italica Holdings SA v Bayadea, Commercial Union Life Assurance Co. Ltd v Mustapha and Blunden v Frogmore Investments Ltd.
4. Section 7 of the Interpretation Act 1978 concerns documents authorised or required to be served by post. It does not displace the specific scheme in section 23. The words in section 7 do not extend to every statutory reference to giving, sending or serving a document.
5. The court was not clearly satisfied that the earlier first-instance decisions or Blunden were wrong. A High Court judge should ordinarily follow consistent decisions of judges of coordinate jurisdiction unless clearly persuaded that they are wrong.
6. The deemed-service rule pursued certainty and allocated the risk of non-delivery. It did not infringe the tenant’s Convention rights. The tenant’s statutory protection was an extra-contractual privilege, and procedural rules could define the steps needed to obtain it.
7. The landlord received its costs of the appeal and half its costs below. The court reserved detailed assessment of costs for written submissions.

1. High Court (Chancery Division): allowed the landlord’s appeal from the preliminary decision of HHJ Cotran.
2. Central London County Court: held that the notice was served on actual receipt and that the tenant’s application for a new tenancy was in time. No neutral citation is stated.