Parties agreeing to alter size of agricultural holding — Respondent landlord increasing rent — Whether rent increase exempting appellants from rent review — Paragraph 4(1)(b) of Schedule 2 to Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 — Appeal dismissed
The appellants held an agricultural tenancy within the meaning of the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986. In 1997, an additional small area of land was incorporated into the tenancy by written agreement between the parties, and the rent was increased accordingly, although a formal agreement with details of the rent adjustment was not produced until 2000.
A rent review was scheduled for September 1999. The appellants claimed that they were exempt from such a review until three years after the date of the formal agreement, under the provisions of para 4(1)(b) of Schedule 2 to the 1986 Act. The respondents argued that the rent review was valid because the agreement fell within the exemptions to para 4(1)(b), as set out in paras 4(2) and 6 of Schedule 2. Paragraph 6 provided that if the agreement were not a new tenancy, but related only to the adjustment of the boundaries or any other variation of the tenancy, then increases of rent were not caught by the provisions of para 4(1)(b).
Held: The appeal was dismissed.
There was normally a distinction between the description of the holding and the terms of the tenancy, but it was a question of context. The purpose of para 6 of Schedule 2 was to cover arrangements in which, although a variation to a tenancy would take effect in law as surrender and regrant, the parties did not intend or desire that consequence. The legislature intended to guard against the situation where any variation in rent that was entirely attributable to a variation in the tenancy was not to be treated as an event that started the three-year period running afresh. In that context, the addition of a small piece of land, where the increase in the rent merely reflected the value of that additional land, could not engage para 4. The judge was correct in his construction of para 6, and it was therefore not necessary to consider any further points: Mann v Gardner [1991] 1 EGLR 9 considered.
Paul Morgan QC and Anthony Tanney (instructed by Burges Salmon, of Bristol) appeared for the appellants; Caroline Hutton (instructed by Bircham Dyson Bell) appeared for the respondent.
Vivienne Lane, barrister
