Claimant seeking possession of houseboat – Occupier of houseboat claiming assured tenancy – Whether occupier protected tenant – Whether houseboat capable of being dwelling-house within meaning of section 1(1) of Housing Act 1988 – Whether houseboat part of land – Judge finding assured tenancy – Appeal allowed
In August 1993 C agreed to let a houseboat known as “Dinty Moore” to the defendant for a period of six months at a rent of £320 per month. The houseboat was moored at 106 Cheney Walk, London SW10, where it was connected by ropes to neighbouring boats, the pontoon, mooring posts, the river wall and mooring beams embedded in the river bed. It was also connected via two ropes to a chain and anchor embedded in the foreshore up against the river wall and it was connected to pipes and cables providing water, vacuum sewage and electricity. The term was extended for a further six months in February 1994 and from time to time thereafter.
The claimant subsequently purchased the houseboat from C. In November 1997 it served a notice to quit on the defendant requiring him to give up possession on 1 January 1998. In March 1998 the claimant issued proceedings for possession claiming that the houseboat was a chattel with the effect that the claimant was entitled to possession on demand and, in the alternative, that the defendant’s tenancy of the houseboat was not protected under the Housing Act 1988 since the boat was not a dwelling-house within section 1(1) of the Act.
In June 1998 the district judge held as a preliminary issue that the defendant occupied the houseboat under an assured tenancy within the meaning of the Act. The claimant’s appeal was dismissed and it appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Held: The appeal was allowed.
1. Whether an object had become part and parcel of the land depended on the degree of annexation to the land and the purpose of the annexation: see Holland v Hodgson (1872) LR 7 CP 328 and Elitestone Ltd v Morris [1997] 2 EGLR 115. That principle was binding and had to be applied. However, it did not appear that the district judge or the judge had applied it, and accordingly the Court of Appeal was not bound by their decisions.
2. When considering the degree of annexation of a chattel to the land, the issue was whether the object could be removed without injury to itself. It was important to bear in mind that the degree of annexation had be sufficient for the chattel to be considered to have become part of the land. The houseboat rested on the riverbed and was secured by ropes and, to some extent, by pipes and cables providing services. However, it was difficult to see how those attachments could make it part of the land. If one asked what land it was attached to, there was no satisfactory answer. The ropes and service lines could all be undone without injury to the houseboat itself or to the land. It was not necessary for a houseboat to be annexed to land in order for it to be used as a home. The purpose of the attachments was to prevent the houseboat from being carried up or downstream and to provide services to it. For those reasons, it could not be concluded that the houseboat was part of the land and, accordingly, it could not be a dwelling-house to which the 1988 Act applied.
John Male (instructed by Winward Fearon) appeared for the claimant; Valerie Easty (instructed by Gold Lerman & Muirhead) appeared for the defendant.
Thomas Elliott, barrister
