Regent Wealth Ltd & Ors v Wiggins

For collective enfranchisement under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, the relevant date is the date on which the initial notice is given. The leasehold interests liable to acquisition under section 2 are superior interests existing then. A lease granted afterwards cannot be added by amendment under paragraph 15 of Schedule 3.

Registration of the notice engages section 19. If it is not registered, section 97 and section 29 of the Land Registration Act 2002 mean that a later registrable disposition for valuable consideration takes priority over the unprotected claim. Actual notice does not change that result.

The participating qualifying tenants served an initial notice claiming collective enfranchisement of a building containing flats. The notice identified existing intermediate leasehold interests held by the appellant companies.

After the notice was served, but before it was registered, the companies granted and registered further long underleases. The respondent applied under paragraph 15 of Schedule 3 to amend the initial notice so as to include those new leases. The Central London County Court allowed the amendment and dismissed the companies’ counterclaim. The appeal concerned whether the new leases could be brought within the existing claim and whether the companies took them free from the unregistered notice.

1. Appeal allowed. The order permitting amendment of the initial notice was set aside. The companies were declared to have taken the new leases free from the initial notice and the claim made by it.
2. The statutory scheme fixes the entitlement to collective enfranchisement by reference to the relevant date, defined by section 1(8) of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 as the date of service of the initial notice. Sections 1 and 2 must be read together. The interests liable to acquisition under section 2 are superior leasehold interests existing at that date. The scheme contains machinery to reflect later changes in existing interests, but it does not extend to leases created after the relevant date.
3. Paragraph 15(2)(b) of Schedule 3 permits amendment where an interest liable to acquisition at the relevant date was omitted from the initial notice. It does not permit the addition of a lease which did not exist when the notice was served. Paragraph 15(3), requiring an included interest to be treated as if it had been specified at the relevant date, confirms that conclusion.
4. Section 97(1) makes a section 13 notice registrable as if it were an estate contract. If registered, section 19 prevents relevant landlords from granting later leases which would have been liable to acquisition and renders prohibited transactions void. If the notice is not registered, section 29 of the Land Registration Act 2002 gives priority to a later registrable disposition made for valuable consideration. The disponee takes free of the unprotected claim, irrespective of actual notice. Midland Bank Trust Co Limited v Green [1981] AC 573, together with the analogous decisions in Melbury Road Properties 1995 Limited v Kriedi [1999] 3 EGLR 108 and Buckley v SRL Investments Limited (1970) P&CR 756, supported that conclusion.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division) allowed the appeal and made a declaration that the appellant companies took the new leases free from the initial notice: [2014] EWCA Civ 1078.
2. Central London County Court, Mr Recorder Kent QC, ordered on 16 May 2013 that the initial notice could be amended to include the new leases and dismissed the companies’ counterclaim.
3. Leasehold Valuation Tribunal determined that the existing leases were to be valued subject to the new leases and held that it lacked jurisdiction to order acquisition of the new leases without amendment. The parties withdrew their appeals to the Upper Tribunal.