Business lease — Renewal — Respondent tenant serving notice at address given as landlord’s address pursuant to section 47 of Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 — New lease granted on terms of notice — Whether notice invalidly served — Whether landlord notifying tenant of address for service of notices under section 48 — Appeal dismissed
The respondent tenant served a notice on the defendant landlord, pursuant to section 42 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, claiming a new lease of the demised property. The notice was sent to two addresses by recorded delivery. It was returned undelivered from one address, but was signed for at the other. The appellant failed to serve a counternotice, with the effect that the respondent was entitled to a new lease on the terms specified in its notice provided that that notice had been properly served.
In the court below, the appellant accepted that the notice had been signed for at an address provided to the respondent as the landlord’s address within the meaning of section 47 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987. However, it claimed that service at that address was invalid since it had furnished the respondent with an address for the service of notices within the meaning of section 48, and that address was the appropriate one for service by virtue of section 99(3) of the 1993 Act. It relied upon previous correspondence between its agent and a solicitor acting for the respondent in respect of dilapidations, consequent remedial works and insurance, during which the respondent’s solicitor had requested the correct address for correspondence. In response, the agent had sent a letter containing an address at which the respondent’s solicitor was to write to it. The appellant relied upon that letter as amounting to notification of an address for the service of notices within section 48. It contended that it was not necessary for the letter to state in terms that the address given was for the service of notices under the Act so long as a reasonable tenant would have understood its purpose. The judge ruled in favour of the respondent and granted the new lease. The appellant appealed.
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
The test was whether, on a fair reading of the correspondence in its context, the respondent’s solicitor would have understood that the letter from the appellant’s agent was referring not only to letters written for the purpose of the particular transactions that it was discussing with the agent at that point but as embracing all documentation, including notices, relating to the lease: Drew-Morgan v Hamid-Zadeh [1999] 2 EGLR 13; [1999] 26 EG 156 considered. Neither the terms of the specific letter, nor that letter read in the context of the correspondence as a whole, could reasonably have been regarded as conveying that message. The letter relied upon by the appellant concerned ongoing correspondence regarding the specific matters of dilapidations and insurance. The letter went no further than indicating the address to which to write to the appellant’s agent for those purposes. Nothing in the correspondence explicitly or implicitly indicated that the respondent’s solicitor had any more general retainer in relation to the property or the landlord and tenant relationship. It followed that the relevant address for the purposes of section 99 of the 1993 Act was that last furnished as the landlord’s address in accordance with section 47 of the 1987 Act. The respondent’s notice had been validly served at that address.
In any event, even if the letter could have amounted to a notification under section 48, it would not have been adequately given to the respondent tenant since the respondent’s solicitor was not authorised to receive such a notification. The solicitor was acting in relation to dilapidations and insurance only and was not held out as acting in any wider or more general capacity: Saffron Walden Second Benefit Building Society v Rayner (1880) 14 ChD 406 applied; Westway Homes Ltd v Moores [1991] 2 EGLR 193; [1991] 31 EG 57 distinguished.
Geoffrey Zelin (instructed by Lass Salt Garvin) appeared for the appellant; Anthony Radevsky (instructed by Lee & Kan) appeared for the respondent.
Sally Dobson, barrister
