Landholding including two farmhouses – Plaintiffs serving notice to quit – Meaning of “premises let as a dwelling” in Protection from Eviction Act 1977, section 5 – Plaintiffs’ claim for possession dismissed – Appeal allowed
A landholding including two farmhouses and 350 acres in Levens and Helsington, Cumbria, was let by the plaintiffs to the defendants in 1985 on an annual tenancy which was a tenancy protected by the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. The defendants were father and son and had farmed part of the holding for very many years. In November 1994 the plaintiffs served on the defendants under the 1986 Act a notice to pay rent in respect of arrears then due. In default of compliance, the plaintiffs served a notice to quit purporting to terminate the tenancy. The defendants did not exercise their right to challenge the notice to quit by arbitration and the plaintiffs took proceedings for possession. It was common ground that the notice to quit failed to comply with the Notice to Quit etc (Prescribed Information) Regulations 1988 and that if the holding constituted “premises let as a dwelling” within the meaning section 5 of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, the defect was fatal to the notice to quit and the plaintiffs were not entitled to possession.
The judge dimissed the claim and the plaintiffs appealed submitting that while not disputing that section 1 of the 1977 Act protected the defendants as “residential occupiers” from unlawful eviction, the inclusion in the same Act of section 5, dealing with notice to quit and formerly in section 16 of the Rent Act 1957, did not have the effect of giving protection to agricultural holdings which included a dwelling-house. The defendants contended that “premises” meant the subject-matter of the letting and “let as a dwelling” meant let wholly or partly as a dwelling. If premises which were primarily agricultural were let, and there was a dwelling-house on the premises, the premises were let as a dwelling within the meaning of section 5.
Held The appeal was allowed.
1. Premises let as an agricultural holding, even if there was a dwelling upon the holding, did not constitute premises let as a dwelling for the purposes of section 5 of the Act. Although the “premises” were the subject-matter of the letting, which was the entire acreage, they were let as an agricultural holding and not as a dwelling. The subject-matter of the letting included a dwelling, but the section was not to be read as if it used the expression “premises which include a dwelling” or “any dwelling-house let as part of premises”.
2. The notice to quit therefore was valid and was not rendered invalid by the absence of a notice containing the “prescribed information” in the 1988 regulations. The contents of regulations made under and after the Act were not to be regarded as a proper tool for construing the Act, especially when the Act , in section 5(3), provided for “different provision in relation to different descriptions of lettings”.
Derek Wood QC (instructed by Burges Salmon, of Bristol) appeared for the appellants; Paul Morgan QC and Steven Jourdan (instructed by Cartmell Shepherd & Co, of Carlisle) appeared for the respondents.
