Case E notice to quit — Validity — Extent of land to which notice given — Notice relating to more land than that comprised in tenancy — Whether clear and certain — Whether tenant misled — Whether notice to be taken as a whole — Case G notice served after tenant’s death — Whether new tenancy created — Judgment for landlord
The action concerned agricultural land at Wyverstone, Stowmarket, Suffolk. The plaintiff landlord had granted to S an agricultural tenancy of “all those farms, farmhouse, buildings and land containing 291.24 acres” for a tenancy running from year to year from December 1985. Thereafter the landlord conveyed a small plot of land, which was not included in the 1985 tenancy, to her grandson. Six months later she executed a further deed of gift in his favour of a strip of land conveyed expressly subject to the S’s lease so that the reversion was severed.
In 1988 a Case E notice was served on S. That notice took no account of the severance of the reversion but referred to “all that holding and premises … and all land held … as tenant”. S, who had taken the point that the notice was invalid, died in 1988. Upon his death, a Case G notice was served which, in its drafting, did take account of the severance. The case for the landlord was that on the death of S, the executors’ right to remain in possession had been brought to an end by the duly served Case G notice. S’s executors, who had paid the rent after his death, contested that the Case E notice was valid so that the tenancy, in fact, had been duly terminated. They had remained in possession so that they now had the benefit of a new tenancy quite distinct from that which had been vested in S. Moreover, that tenancy was from year to year with the protection of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. At first instance (reported at [1991] 1 EGLR 17; [1991] 14 EG 108), the judge held that: (a) the Case E notice had been invalid in that it was confusing and misleading; (b) to the knowledge of the tenant, the landlord wished to commence possession proceedings so that no new tenancy had been created by the acceptance of the rent; and (c) the Case G notice was valid. The executors appealed.
Held The appeal was dismissed, albeit on other grounds.
1. With regard to the Case E notice, the judge had been right on the law but wrong on its application. There was a general principle that common sense entered into the interpretation of an inaccurate notice to quit; it need not be drawn with strict precision provided that it was sufficiently clear: Carradine Properties Ltd v Aslam [1976] 1 WLR 442. In the present case, a strip of land, 9 x 200 ft, was not material in the context of a 290-acre farm. It was enough if the right information had been given so that the tenant was not confused. A notice should not be invalidated on merely technical points if its meaning was so plain that it could not be misunderstood by a reasonable recipient: Frankland v Capstick [1959] 1 WLR 204.
2. The landlord had no power over the strip of land which was conveyed expressly subject to the S’s lease: see section 140(2) of the Law of Property Act 1925.
3. The Case G notice was not relevant.
4. It was clear from the documents that possession proceedings had always been intended so there was no room for an intention to grant a new tenancy (per McCowan LJ).
Paul Morgan (instructed by Reynolds Porter Chamberlain) appeared for the appellant executors; and Jonathan Brock (instructed by Burges Salmon, of Bristol) appeared for the respondent landlord.
