Housing Act 1985 — Secure tenancy — Ground 2 possession — Nuisance and annoyance to neighbours — Conduct away from dwelling-house — Whether neighbours means adjoining occupiers
The appellants
were tenants of a council house, which they occupied with their seven children,
in a housing estate under a secure tenancy within the meaning of Part IV of the
Housing Act 1985. Persistent antisocial and criminal activities were committed
by the tenants’ eldest sons on the estate, but more than 100m from the
dwelling. These activities caused nuisance and annoyance to other residents.
The council sought, and were granted, an order for possession against the
tenants pursuant to section 84 of, and grounds 1 and 2 of Schedule 2 to, the
1985 Act for breach of the tenancy agreement, the tenants’ children having been
guilty of conduct amounting to nuisance or annoyance to neighbours. The tenants
appealed contending that there was no nuisance and annoyance for the purposes
of the agreement and ground 2 as the victims were not immediate neighbours.
occupiers’ in ground 2 of Schedule 2 to the 1985 Act are not interchangeable.
All adjoining occupiers are neighbours, but not all neighbours are adjoining
occupiers. Neighbours are wider and the view of the editors of Woodfall on
Landlord and Tenant is preferred; the intention was to avoid ‘arid disputes
as to proximity’. It is clearly intended to cover all persons sufficiently
close to the sources of the conduct complained of to be adversely affected by
that conduct. There is no warrant for reading the first part of ground 2 as if
after the word ‘conduct’ the qualifying words ‘at the dwelling-house’ were read
in. There must be a link between the behaviour of the tenants and their sons,
which constitutes a nuisance or annoyance, and the fact that they live in the
area. That link is the legitimate interest the landlords have in requiring
their tenants to respect the neighbourhood in which they live and the quiet
enjoyment of their homes by those who live there.
dissenting: Ground 2 is not concerned with
misconduct unconnected with the demised premises. The ground does not provide
general neighbourhood protection against bad behaviour by a tenant.
The following
cases are referred to in this report.
Cobstone
Investments Ltd v Maxim [1985] QB 140;
[1984] 3 WLR 606; [1984] 2 All ER 635, CA
Donoghue v Stevenson [1932] AC 562, HL
Hall v Beckenham Corporation [1949] 1 KB 716; [1949] 1 All ER 423;
65 TLR 146; 47 LGR 291
Kensington
and Chelsea Royal London Borough Council v
Simmonds (1996) 29 HLR 507
Tod-Heatley
v Benham (1888) 40 ChD 80
Whitbread
v Ward (1952) 159 EG 494
This was an
appeal brought by the tenants, Robert Kelvin Lovatt and Margaret Rose Lovatt,
against the decision of Judge Corrie in the county court upholding the decision
of the district judge granting an order for possession to the landlords,
Northampton Borough Council, under section 84 and grounds 1 and 2 of Schedule 2
to the Housing Act 1985.
Derek Wood QC
and Edmund Farrell (instructed by Toller Hales & Collcutt, of Northampton)
appeared for the appellants; Paul Morgan QC and John W Gibson (instructed by
the solicitor to Northampton Borough Council) represented the respondents.
Giving judgment,
HENRY LJ said: The appellants, Mr and Mrs Lovatt, were tenants of a
council house owned by Northampton Borough Council at 174 Gladstone Road, on
the council’s Spencer Estate.
They lived
there with their seven children, the three eldest of which were boys. From 1994
those boys, then 17 (Robert), 15 (Leroy) and 13 (Kelvin), were literally
running wild on the estate, with behaviour which was criminal or antisocial or
both. Essentially, all of that misbehaviour was committed on the Spencer
Estate, but none of the boys’ misbehaviour was in Gladstone Road where they
lived.
Against that
background, the council sought and obtained an order for possession against Mr
and Mrs Lovatt primarily on the grounds that their three eldest boys (persons
‘residing in the dwelling-house’) had been guilty of ‘conduct which is a
nuisance or annoyance to neighbours’. The essential issue for the courts below
and for us was whether conduct that had taken place away from the
dwelling-house could be relied on as the basis for an order for possession, and
whether the victims of that conduct who lived on the estate, but not within
100m of the Lovatts, were ‘neighbours’ within the meaning of the tenancy
agreement and the Housing Act 1985, which limits the grounds on which a public
sector landlord can obtain possession.
Tenancy
agreement
The tenancy
was a secure tenancy within the meaning of Part IV of the Housing Act 1985 —
‘Secure Tenancies and Rights of Secure Tenants’. It imposed on Mr and Mrs
Lovatt, as tenants, the following (among other) obligations:
[to] ensure
that neither the tenant nor any person residing in the premises commits within
the neighbourhood any act of abuse, whether verbal or physical, directed at individuals
or groups on the basis of colour or origin.
[to] ensure
that no nuisance or annoyance is caused to neighbours.
The agreement
also provided that the landlords would give at least four weeks’ written notice
setting out the reason for any decision to
remove any rights the tenant had which are contained in the Housing Acts or
other legislation. As a secure tenancy, it was protected by Part IV of the
Housing Act 1985, which I now consider.
Statutory
protection
Section 80
makes clear that the protection now applies only to public sector and
quasi-public sector landlords.
Section 82(1)
provides:
A secure
tenancy which is either —
(a) a weekly
or other periodic tenancy …
cannot be
brought to an end by the landlord except by obtaining an order of the court for
the possession of the dwelling-house …
Section 83(1):
The court
shall not entertain —
(a)
proceedings for the possession of a dwelling-house let under a secure tenancy …
unless the
landlord has served on the tenant a notice complying with the provisions of
this section.
Such notice
must specify, with particulars, the ground on which possession is sought. Such
grounds are dealt with in section 84:
(1) The court
shall not make an order for the possession of a dwelling-house let under a
secure tenancy except on one or more of the grounds set out in Schedule 2.
(2) The court
shall not make an order for possession —
(a) on the
grounds set out in Part I of that Schedule (grounds 1 to 8), unless it
considers it reasonable to make the order …
(3) The court
shall not make such an order on any of those grounds unless the ground is
specified in the notice in pursuance of which proceedings for possession are
begun; but the grounds so specified may be altered or added to with the leave
of the court.
Schedule 2
provides (so far as is directly relevant):
GROUNDS FOR POSSESSION OF DWELLING-HOUSES LET
UNDER SECURE TENANCIES
Part I
GROUNDS ON WHICH COURT MAY ORDER POSSESSION IF IT
CONSIDERS IT REASONABLE
Ground 1
Rent lawfully
due from the tenant has not been paid or an obligation of the tenancy has been
broken or not performed.
Ground 2
The tenant or
a person residing in the dwelling-house has been guilty of conduct which is a
nuisance or annoyance to neighbours, or has been convicted of using the
dwelling-house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes.
The
requirement that the judge must be satisfied in all cases under these two grounds
that it is reasonable to make an order is a fundamental protection to the
tenant against unjust eviction.
The notice was
dated January 26 1996. It relied on grounds 1 and 2 of Schedule 2. The
particulars given under ground 2, identified from (a) to (l), relate to the
conduct the judge essentially found proved, summarised hereafter. The
particulars given under ground 2 conclude:
In the
circumstances you have failed to control or discipline your children or control
your own conduct so as to allow neighbours on the Spencer Estate to enjoy quiet
possession of their homes and so as to prevent nuisance.
Under ground 1
the particulars referred to small arrears of rent and repeated the ground 2
allegations as breaches of the obligation not to cause nuisance or annoyance to
neighbours.
The matter
came on for hearing before District Judge Whitehurst, who made an order on
September 20 1996 granting possession within seven days. His order was appealed
to the county court judge and on October 21 1996 that appeal was dismissed,
save that the date for possession was extended to November 1 1996. The appeal
now before us, for which leave was granted by this court, is technically
against the order made by the county court judge, sitting in his appellate
capacity, but the real question is whether the district judge was right.
The district
judge gave a careful and lengthy judgment. At trial the defendants admitted 11
convictions or findings of guilt in 1994 involving property or people on the
Spencer Estate. They did not essentially challenge the evidence given, nor did
they give or call any evidence. The convictions they admitted showed that the
three brothers had between them seven convictions in respect of burglary
committed on the estate. Three of these were in respect of burglary of
dwelling-houses and the other four (all committed by the youngest of the three)
were burglaries at a local school, Gladstone Lower School. Additionally, Kelvin
damaged a motor car in Merthyr Road ‘belonging to a man whose name from the record
I judge to be of Asian origin’. Leroy rode a motorcycle on a footpath in
Dallington Road; and Kelvin took a motorcycle without consent and rode it
dangerously. All these acts were on the estate. As the judge found, the estate
was the focus for their antisocial activity. Mrs Lovatt herself was convicted
of a breach of the peace at the premises, involving a police officer. While all
those convictions were in 1994, the evidence the judge heard of harassment and
racial abuse extended over 1995 into the summer of 1996. What seems clear is
that the criminal law had no apparent restraining influence on their conduct on
the estate.
The flavour of
the brothers’ activities can be shown by summarising the evidence of two
witnesses accepted by the judge as being truthful.
First, Mrs
Weston. She and her partner, Mr Page, operated a milk round on the Spencer
Estate. She was burgled in July 1995. Someone purporting to be the burglar
telephoned her a week later. She recognised Kelvin’s voice. On two dates soon
thereafter Robert Lovatt was outside her property shouting and obscenely
abusing her. From her house she could see two empty council properties and had
seen Robert and Kelvin entering the property in the middle of the night and
cutting up metal there. The gates of her property were damaged and later
Robert, when drunk, apologised for the damage. The judge finally concluded:
On many
occasions Robert and Kelvin hung around her house and … on one occasion for a
period of over four hours they shouted and banged the property … probably with
an iron bar.
Unsurprisingly,
she said she felt like a prisoner in her own home. She and her partner were
driven from the neighbourhood by this conduct and were rehoused by the local
council.
It is not
clear what, if anything, the Lovatt brothers had against Mrs Weston. But the
nature of their behaviour to her is, in my judgment, linked to the fact that
they lived in the area. Because of that, they knew where to find her and
apparently knew what they could get away with on the streets of the estate.
Mrs Gillett
was the headteacher of Spencer Middle School. Kelvin Lovatt had been a pupil
there, but was expelled (‘excluded’ under the statutory procedures). But he
returned on about 14 occasions in 1994, shouting abuse, including racial abuse,
throwing missiles and threatening to attack her car. Once, she was outside her
school with three Pakistani children, when Leroy passed as a passenger in a car
driven by his mother, and he swore calling the three girls ‘dirty fucking
Pakis’. On July 9 1996 she had been into a school meeting and when she left in
her car she had to drive past a number of youths which included Robert and
Leroy. All the youths were abusive and a number, though she could not say they
included Robert and Leroy, threw an apple and what she describes as small
pieces of metal at her car. The headmistress’s evidence again shows the
confidence of local youth indulging in threatening and antisocial behaviour in
their area. She was clearly targeted because Kelvin had been expelled.
Consequently,
the district judge was satisfied that the council had established that the
three boys committed numerous acts of a criminal or antisocial nature, which
were the cause of nuisance or annoyance to
follows:
(i) harassment
of Mrs Lorraine Weston, formerly a resident at 17 Swansea Road, Spencer, during
1995;
(ii)
harassment of pupils and governors at Spencer Middle School during 1994;
(iii) trespass
at Spencer Middle School;
(iv) criminal
damage to the motor vehicle in Merthyr Road;
(v) motoring
offences in Dallington Road;
(vi) seven
burglaries, as evidenced by the convictions;
(vii) further
acts of trespass, burglary and vandalism as witnessed by Mrs Weston;
(viii) abuse,
including racial abuse, towards Mrs Weston and towards the pupils of the
Spencer Middle School.
He made two
findings in relation to Mr and Mrs Lovatt, namely that Mrs Lovatt had been
abusive to a police officer at the premises, as shown by her conviction, and
that Mr Lovatt had used his property for running a car repair and maintenance
business.
He held it to
be clear settled law following Kensington and Chelsea Royal London Borough
Council v Simmonds (1996) 29 HLR 507, that the parent tenant is
responsible for the acts of his or her minor child as being a person resident
with him for the purposes of the Housing Act 1985. In that case Simon Brown LJ
said:
It would in
my judgment be quite intolerable if they were to be held necessarily deprived
of all possibility of relief in these cases, merely because some ineffectual
tenant next door was incapable of controlling his or her household.
This principle
was not challenged before the district judge and nor has it been before us.
Indeed, there was evidence of Mr Lovatt acting to obstruct the police when they
attempted to arrest his son. The judge went on to conclude:
I am satisfied
that the acts complained of were done wantonly or unreasonably and were not in
the exercise of any rights and that those acts were not transient or occasional
taken as a whole, but were continuing and impinged not only on those who told
me about them, but, by obvious inference, also upon others upon the estate.
Furthermore,
I am satisfied that the activities described constituted real interference with
the comfort of those on the estate judged by the standards of the average man,
and that it was an inconvenience affecting their ordinary comfort.
Accordingly,
I am satisfied that the activities of the defendants and their children were a
nuisance to people on the Spencer Estate.
Accordingly,
the district judge held that both grounds 1 and 2 were made out and that it was
reasonable (as required by section 84(2)(a)) to make an order for possession.
His judgment was upheld by the county court judge who ‘had no hesitation in
endorsing the District Judge’s decision on every aspect of the matter’.
Counsel for Mr
and Mrs Lovatt did not seek to challenge any of the findings of fact made by
the district judge. Nor did he suggest that, on the basis of those findings of
fact, the district judge was not entitled to find that it was reasonable to
make the possession order. The challenge to the decisions below relates to the
single issue identified, namely that the judge was wrong in law in finding that
acts of nuisance and annoyance committed away from the demised premises were
relevant nuisance and annoyance for the purposes of ground 2 in Schedule 2 to
the Act, it being denied that the victims were ‘neighbours’. Of the 13 venues
for acts of nuisance and annoyance found, it is clear from the agreed plan
given to us that none were committed within 100m of the Lovatts’ house, except
Mrs Lovatt’s breach of the peace and Mr Lovatt’s vehicle repairs. The rest were
all committed on the estate (assuming that Spencer Middle School was on the
estate, as the judge seems to have found, though on our plan it lay just
outside it).
Before dealing
with the submissions it will be convenient first to deal with the legislative
history and then with such authorities as will assist.
There is no
doubt that the inspiration for Part IV of the Housing Act 1985 was its Rent Act
private sector equivalent, case 2 of Schedule 15 to the Rent Act 1977, where we
find a provision to like effect save that the nuisance and annoyance had to be
‘to adjoining occupiers’ rather than to neighbours.
The meaning of
‘adjoining occupiers’ was explored in this court in Cobstone Investments Ltd
v Maxim [1985] QB 140. The submission for the tenant was that the word
‘adjoining’ should be read literally so that the premises must be contiguous in
the sense of physically joining, or being coterminous with the holding of the
tenant whose conduct was complained of. It was submitted that adjoining did not
mean neighbouring.
These
submissions failed. Dunn LJ (with whom Wood J agreed) accepted as an accurate
statement of the law a passage in the 10th ed of Megarry, The Rent Acts,
at p271:
The word
‘adjoining’ has been construed as meaning ‘contiguous’, so that the occupants
of a second floor flat have been held not to be ‘adjoining occupiers’ to the
ground floor flat beneath them. But this seems too strict a view; for one
meaning of the word is ‘neighbouring’, and all that the context seems to
require is that the premises of the adjoining occupiers should be near enough
to be affected by the tenant’s conduct on the demised premises.
Wood J added,
at p151F:
In my
judgment the meaning of the word ‘adjoining’ is not restricted to the meaning
of ‘contiguous’. Each case must depend on the facts as found by the judge
trying the action. It is a question of degree. There may be other ways of
approaching the issue, but it may be useful to consider it in this way; namely,
whether the relevant premises are sufficiently close or related, so that the
behaviour or conduct of the tenant of the one affects the access to, or
occupation or enjoyment of the other by its occupier.
In that case
all of the tenant’s activities comprising nuisance (which seems to have been
unspecified verbal abuse of the agent for her landlord and her fellow tenants)
was either on the premises or from the common parts. Therefore (as Mr Wood QC,
for the appellants, concedes) it is not authority directly supportive of his
submission, as the only conduct considered was ‘in the demised premises’. The
authority is against him to the extent that the wider definition of ‘adjoining
premises’ was preferred, but that damage to his case is limited by the fact
that the decision is restricted to nuisance committed from the premises (or
from the common parts of premises with several occupiers).
We were also
referred to the case of Whitbread v Ward (1952) 159 EG 494, CA.
That seems to me to be a case which turns very much on its own facts and I get
no assistance from it in this case. There are no other authorities which, in my
judgment, assist.
The Housing
Act 1985 introduced the concept of ‘neighbours’. On its introduction the
editors of Woodfall on Landlord and Tenant commented:
This ground
is based on Case 2 Schedule 15 to the Rent Act 1977 but ‘neighbours’ has been
substituted for ‘adjoining occupiers’ to avoid arid disputes as to proximity.
There is, in
addition, an interesting piece of legislative history. Ground 2 of Schedule 2
has been repealed and replaced by section 144 of the Housing Act 1996. The
heading to the section is ‘Extension of Ground of Nuisance or Annoyance to
Neighbours etc’. The new ground reads:
Ground 2
The tenant or
a person residing in or visiting the dwelling-house —
(a) has been
guilty of conduct causing or likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to a
person residing, visiting or otherwise engaging in a lawful activity in the
locality, or
(b) has been
convicted of —
(i) using the
dwelling-house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes, or
(ii) an
arrestable offence committed in, or in the locality of, the dwelling-house.
It was clearly
the intention of parliament to extend the tenant’s liability for nuisance, but
the 1996 intention is no guide to the 1985 intention.
However, it is
interesting to note that Halsbury’s Statutes’ explanatory note to that
section includes the following*:
*Editor’s
note: This extract from the House of Commons (Standing Committee G) Report for
February 27 1996 is not in Halsbury’s Statutes.
The new
Ground 2 substituted by this Section extends the former nuisance ground in a
number of ways. Firstly, it now covers conduct, behaviour, etc by somebody who
is visiting the dwelling as well as those residing there. Secondly, it now
applies to conduct which is likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance. The
purpose of this is to enable third party witnesses to give evidence (for
example a local authority officer) so as to overcome the problem of intimidation
of potential witnesses, especially the victims of the behaviour. Thirdly, it
now covers situations in which a nuisance is caused to a person visiting or
otherwise engaging in a lawful activity in the locality, as well to a person
residing in the locality. Fourthly, it now extends not only to cases where a
tenant has been convicted of using the dwelling for immoral or illegal
purposes, but also to a person convicted of an arrestable offence committing in
or in the locality of the dwelling house (HC official report SC G (Housing
Bill) Columns 382–387: 27th February 1996).
— and later in
the same note we find —
Locality. The word ‘locality’ is designed to cover as wide an area as
possible, while maintaining a link between the tenant’s behaviour and the fact
that he lives in the area. It is also designed to deal with a case where
tenants do not have the same landlord*: [for example a tenant committing
nuisance against a neighbour could escape by virtue of the fact that he
happened to be on the other side of a local authority boundary running down the
middle of the road] (HC official report SC G (Housing Bill) Columns 384–386:
27th February 1996).
*Editor’s
note: The words in square brackets are not in Halsbury’s Statutes.
It is not
contended that that Act, reflecting the concerns of parliament in 1996, can
assist us in construing the width of the protection given by parliament in
1985. But, though not relevant in this case, in any case where parliamentary
material is or may be relevant, it is convenient to have that material
summarised (with references) in the notes on the section.
I turn to the
construction of ground 2. Mr Wood’s first submission is that ground 2 is
concerned with activities carried on by the tenant (or persons residing with
him) on or at the premises which are detrimental to the peace, comfort and
amenity of people living nearby.
First, he
contends that the terms ‘neighbours’ and ‘adjoining occupiers’ are
interchangeable. I do not agree. All adjoining occupiers are neighbours, but
not all neighbours are adjoining occupiers. Neighbours is the wider word and
was intended to be — I agree with the editors of Woodfall on Landlord and
Tenant that the intention was to avoid ‘arid disputes as to proximity’. It
is clearly intended to cover all persons sufficiently close to the source of
the conduct complained of to be adversely affected by that conduct. In these
days of amplified music, there is force in GK Chesterton’s observation, ‘Your
next-door neighbour … is not a man; he is an environment’.
Next, Mr Wood
submits that the conduct complained of must emanate from the demised premises.
He points out that most nuisances consist of unreasonable use by an occupier,
and so such a limitation should be read into the Act.
Again, I do
not agree. Even if the phrase ‘nuisance and annoyance’ were used technically
here (and I do not think it is: see Megarry, The Rent Acts, 11th ed, at
p404) you do not have to occupy land to be liable for nuisance (eg flying noisy
model aeroplanes in a public park — Hall v Beckenham Corporation
[1949] 1 KB 716, at p728). There is no warrant for reading the first part of
ground 2 as if after the word ‘conduct’ the qualifying words ‘at the dwelling
house’ were read in. There would be no sense in a law which prevented you from
playing your music at maximum volume in the middle of night from your home but
permitted you to walk round your neighbourhood with your ‘ghetto-blaster’ at
full pitch.
This example
leads conveniently to the next submission. Mr Wood contends that ground 2 is
concerned with landlord and tenant ‘and the use to which the tenant puts the
demised premises’.
In my
judgment, the restriction is not limited to his use of the premises, but his
conduct in the neighbourhood, as the above example suggests. In Cobstone
Investments (supra) counsel for the landlord submitted that the
first five cases in Schedule 15 to the Rent Act 1977 were to protect the
landlord’s interest (see p146E–D) and, accordingly, the wide interpretation of
‘adjoining occupiers’ was to be preferred. That submission is recorded, but
neither expressly accepted nor dissented from. In my judgment, it was right
and, in relation to ground 2, is of greater force when dealing with public
sector landlords under Part IV of the Housing Act 1985.
The trial
judge found that the purpose of the relevant legislation affecting ground 2 was
to protect the local authority’s interest in the Spencer Estate and its
efficient and economic management.
The case of Tod-Heatley
v Benham (1888) 40 ChD 80 dealt with the question in relation to
covenants in a lease to the same effect as ground 2 with private sector
landlords:
the covenant,
in my opinion, is not confined to property belonging to the lessor as
reversioner, but applies to other property also. And if any act done by the
Defendant really amounts to a grievance to the inhabitants of houses not only
on this but on the adjoining property, that, in my opinion, is prohibited by
this covenant. To my mind that must be so. The lessor has put in a covenant to
protect his building estate. Now it must be obvious that if anything is done
which will interfere with or be a grievance to the inhabitants of the adjoining
houses so as to depreciate the property and cause it to be let to and occupied
by an inferior set of tenants, or if the adjoining houses remain unoccupied, or
are in any way affected by the grievance or annoyance, these are matters which
will react upon the lessor’s property … (ibid per Cotton LJ at p93.)
With a public
sector landlord, the case is a fortiori, as they are responsible for the
quality of life of public sector tenants, who will include many who are needy,
vulnerable, isolated and probably without the ability to move from housing made
a misery by the conduct of neighbours.
Mr Wood
submits that such ground 2 covenants (whether found in private leases or under
the Rent Acts or the Housing Acts):
are not
intended to operate as instruments of social control entitling landlords (even
local housing authorities) to evict tenants simply because they are in someway
socially unacceptable.
I have already
rejected the submission that under the Act the landlord is only concerned with
conduct caused by the use to which the tenant puts the demised premises. But I
accept that there must be a link between the behaviour of the tenants and their
sons which constitutes a nuisance or annoyance and the fact that they live in
the area (see, too, the minister, Mr Curry’s, speech in the parliamentary
material for the 1996 Act, referred to in the notes in Halsbury’s Statutes,
ibid at column 384). That link is the legitimate interest the landlords
have in requiring their tenants to respect the neighbourhood in which they live
and the quiet enjoyment of their homes by those who live there.
That fact the
judge recognised. He pointed out that ground 2 and the equivalent provision in
the tenancy agreement were to ensure that there was orderly behaviour between
all who lived on the estate, and where the defendants’ and their sons’ conduct
damaged the estate and its occupants, the landlord in protection of his housing
responsibilities does not have to tolerate it.
Here, the fact
that Mrs Weston and the headmistress, Mrs Gillett, were neighbours led to their
harassment. And, as the judge pointed out, the ripple effect within the estate
from those activities ‘would adversely affect many people whose evidence is
both unknown and unheard’. Such conduct drove Mrs Weston away. And the same can
be said of the vandalism, the racial abuse, the driving offences and the
burglaries — they are all attacks on the neighbourhood and those who live
there. All would damage the quality of life on the estate. All would increase
the cost to the community of attempting to keep the peace on the estate. All
were legitimate concerns of the local authority as landlords and it would have
been perverse for the judge to have concluded that there was no link between
the conduct of the tenants and their sons and the fact that they lived on the
estate that was the focus for their antisocial and criminal conduct.
Accordingly,
in my judgment, the judge was right for the reasons he gave and this appeal
should be dismissed.
Dissenting, PILL
LJ said: There can be no doubt that, upon the judge’s findings, the
behaviour on the Spencer Estate of some of the residents of 174 Gladstone Road
was lamentable. It included the commission of burglaries of dwelling-houses,
harassment of a headteacher and harassment of the tenant of at least one
property to the extent that she left the area. Henry LJ has set out the
appalling conduct in more detail. The district judge concluded that he was
satisfied ‘that the activities of the defendants and their children were a
nuisance and annoyance to people on the Spencer Estate’. The Spencer Estate was
developed for public housing and has identifiable boundaries. It scales from
the map at about 500m2.
The local
authority landlords base their claim for possession upon section 84 and grounds
1 and 2 in Schedule 2 Part I to the Housing Act 1985. While the judge did make
at least one finding of fact in relation to a ground 1 matter (the repair of
vehicles), it is clear that his decision is based on ground 2. He has set out
only ground 2 in his judgment, his finding of fact repeats the ground 2
terminology ‘nuisance or annoyance’, and the rest of his judgment deals with
the implications of that finding. The learned district judge was rightly
concerned to consider legal issues as to whether the conduct which causes the
alleged nuisance or annoyance must be committed in or at the dwelling-house,
the width of the definition of ‘neighbours’ and whether it was reasonable to
make an order for possession.
Section 84(1)
of the 1985 Act provides that the courts shall not make an order for the
possession of a dwelling-house under a secure tenancy except on one or more of
the grounds set out in Schedule 2. Ground 2 of Schedule 2 provides:
The tenant or
a person residing in the dwelling-house has been guilty of conduct which is a
nuisance or annoyance to neighbours, or has been convicted of using the
dwelling-house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes.
The district
judge’s finding was under the first limb stated in the ground, namely that the
activities of the defendants and their children were a nuisance and annoyance.
He went on to find that other residents of the Spencer Estate were relevant
neighbours and also that it was reasonable to make an order for possession.
The present
challenge to the decision, which was upheld by Judge Corrie, of District Judge Whitehurst,
is that he has applied the wrong test when considering the conduct covered by
ground 2. It had been argued on behalf of the defendants that ground 2 covered
only conduct in, or in and around, the demised dwelling-house.
That
submission was rejected by the district judge. While the judge did refer to the
estate as the focus for the antisocial activity, he approached the evidence on
the basis that it was unnecessary for the plaintiffs to establish conduct at or
emanating from the demised dwelling-house. The judge found that the purpose of
the Act was to protect the interests of the landlord as well as the tenant. He
defined the landlords’ interest as an interest in the Spencer Estate. He
stated:
Accordingly
it seems to me that a defendant may be liable for eviction for acts of nuisance
or annoyance committed away from his tenanted premises if those acts are likely
to damage the interest of the landlord in relation to the landlords other
premises.
In reaching
his conclusion, he considered ‘the overall impact of the conduct of the
defendants upon the Estate and its effects upon the plaintiffs’ interest in the
Estate’.
For the
appellants, Mr Derek Wood QC submits that the operation of ground 2 cannot
depend upon whether the landlord has other properties on the estate or in the
neighbourhood of the demised premises. A tenant of a dwelling-house in a
neighbourhood where the landlord has other premises should be in no worse
position than the tenant of a dwelling-house where he does not. The purpose of
ground 2 is to protect people who live in the locality and not those who own
it. Further, ground 2 is concerned with the unreasonable use of demised
premises and the abuse or exploitation by the tenants or residents of their
position or status as tenants or residents. That would include conduct in the
common part of a building let on a number of leases and conduct in the
immediate vicinity of the dwelling-house. It would not include antisocial
behaviour elsewhere which was not conducted in the capacity of tenant or
resident. That would be to use the Housing Act as a general instrument for
social control, which was not its purpose.
Mr Paul Morgan
QC, for the council, submits that to require a link between the conduct and the
premises is to put a gloss upon the wording of ground 2. The word conduct is
not qualified by the words ‘on the demised premises’. The requirement of
reasonableness is the tenant’s safeguard against a possible possession order
based, for example, upon his (or another resident) annoying his neighbour while
they were both on holiday in Majorca.
It is common
ground that the relevant provisions of the 1985 Act can apply only when the
landlords are one of a number of listed public authorities or bodies (section
80). Similar grounds have, however, for many years appeared in statutes
applying to landlords in the private sector. Case 2 in Schedule 15 Part I to
the Rent Act 1977 provides:
Where the
tenant or any person residing or lodging with him or any sub-tenant of his has
been guilty of conduct which is a nuisance or annoyance to adjoining occupiers,
or has been convicted of using the dwelling-house or allowing the
dwelling-house to be used for immoral or illegal purposes.
That provision
is different from ground 2 in its use of the expression ‘adjoining occupiers’
instead of ‘neighbours’. However, I find it impossible to accept that
parliament intended a wholly different approach to ground 2 from that in
equivalent provisions in statutes covering lettings by private landlords. As
enacted and before amendment, the 1985 Act applied also to some housing
associations and housing co-operatives. I cannot accept that parliament
intended in the 1985 Act a broader social purpose because the landlords are
public bodies.
Section 84 of
and Schedule 2 to the statute were intended to regulate the relationship
between landlords and tenants and, in that context, to provide grounds for
possession orders. It was concerned in ground 2 to require the neighbourly use
of premises and not with a sanction for general misbehaviour.
In Cobstone
Investments Ltd v Maxim [1985] QB 140 this court construed the
phrase ‘adjoining occupiers’ in the 1977 Act as referring to occupiers of
premises which, while not necessarily physically touching those of the tenant
complained of, were nevertheless sufficiently near to them that the occupiers
were affected by the tenant’s conduct on the demised premises. The point at
issue was the definition of ‘adjoining occupiers’, but Dunn LJ expressed his
conclusion by stating that they (the complainants) were ‘near enough to be
affected by her [the defendant’s] conduct on the premises’. Dunn LJ accepted as
an accurate statement of the law the passage in Megarry, The Rent Acts,
10th ed, 1967, at p271 that ‘for one meaning of the word is ‘neighbouring’ and
all that the context seems to require is that the premises of the adjoining
occupiers should be near enough to be affected by the tenant’s conduct on
the demised premises‘. (Emphasis supplied.) The point made was a general
one and Dunn LJ and the learned author have assumed, rightly in my respectful
view, that the connection between the conduct and the demised premises is
necessary.
In the context
of a statute dealing with the landlord and tenant relationship, the use in
ground 2 of the word ‘neighbours’ and in the 1977 Act ‘adjoining occupiers’,
demonstrates a parliamentary intention to protect people living near the
premises who are likely to be adversely affected by activities carried on
there. I can find no broader social purpose either for the protection of other
interests of the landlords or general neighbourhood protection against bad
behaviour by a tenant or resident.
While I accept
there may be good social reasons for granting possession orders when tenants or
residents are guilty of criminal or antisocial behaviour in the general
neighbourhood, I cannot accept that ground 2 has that effect. It was not
intended to deal with misconduct
which there may be conduct with a sufficient connection where the act is not
committed actually on the premises. There may also be other cases covered by
ground 2, for example a conspiracy to burgle made on the premises or the use of
the premises as a headquarters for burglaries, where the antisocial behaviour
is on the premises but its impact is felt elsewhere, but I see a connection
with the demised premises as an essential feature of ground 2. The difficulty
involved in defining what connection is required and difficulties at the
borderline do not, in my judgment, require or permit an approach which
comprehends all annoying behaviour outside or even inside the neighbourhood.
The fact that a resident is guilty of antisocial behaviour in the
neighbourhood, albeit criminal in character, does not of itself attract the
operation of ground 2, whether to protect the landlord’s other interests or for
other reasons.
As to the
protection of the landlord’s other interests, the consideration which formed
the basis of the district judge’s decision, I cannot accept that the statutory
regime contemplated that different standards would apply to a tenant in a
neighbourhood where his landlord has many properties from one where his
landlord has none. An investigation of the number of tenants who had exercised
their right to buy under the 1985 Act was not conducted, nor would it have been
appropriate, in my view.
Mr Morgan
relies upon the decision of this court in Whitbread v Ward (1952)
159 EG 494. The landlord lived with her daughters in the upper flat of the
building and the tenant on the ground floor. In an alley not on the premises
the tenant put his arms around the landlord’s daughter and kissed her.
Summervell LJ stated:
I have come
to the conclusion that in considering annoyance to an adjoining occupier —
annoyance of the kind in question in this case, what arises from their being
adjoining may properly be considered in the light of an event which took place
outside the premises. I think that the Judge was right in holding the undue
familiarity, as he found in this case, between a married man and a
sixteen-year-old girl living in the flat above his, was a matter which could be
brought within the word ‘annoyance’ in the Act.
I do not
regard Whitbread as authority for the general propositions stated by the
district judge in this case. While the act was committed off the premises,
there was a close connection with the premises in that both parties to the kiss
were living in the same building and continuing proximity had to be considered
in the light of that event. Such a link has not been held to exist in the
present case. Mr Morgan accepted that, upon the propositions he has advanced,
the application of the relevant words in the statute would have had the same
effect if the tenant had kissed a girl who lived in another street. Such
conduct could and would not, in my view, have led to a possession order.
A statute
dealing with the landlord and tenant relationship could be used as an
instrument for the control of behaviour generally. Tenants and occupiers could
be vulnerable for the loss of their home because of the conduct elsewhere of
one of their number. I am, however, unable to conclude that the 1985 Act, in
ground 2 of Schedule 2, had the broad purposes for which Mr Morgan contends and
on which the courts below relied. If a statute is to have the effect claimed,
it is, in my view, a matter for parliament and not for the courts upon a
construction of the 1985 Act. I underline that I am not taking a narrow view of
the word ‘neighbour’ in ground 2. I rely on the presence of the word only
because its use in context supports the conclusion that parliament, over many
years, had in mind conduct as between neighbours and that intention presupposes
that the conduct complained of has a link with the demised dwelling-house. The expression
‘adjoining occupiers’ in the 1977 Act has the same effect.
The conduct of
some of the residents was appalling and I have considered whether I can support
the upholding of the possession order on the ground that, applying what I
regard as the statutory test, the order must inevitably have been made on
ground 2 or otherwise on ground 1. The courts below have, however, firmly
committed themselves, in the passages I have cited, to ground 2 and to what, in
my view, is an erroneous test. The reasonableness of an order has also to be
considered in all the circumstances, but upon the application of a correct
test. I would allow the appeal and would remit the case to the county court for
rehearing.
Agreeing with
the judgment of Henry LJ, CHADWICK LJ said: The dwelling-house known as
174 Gladstone Road, Spencer, Northampton, together with other properties on the
Spencer Estate, is held by Northampton Borough Council as part of their housing
stock and for the purposes of fulfilling their obligations as the local housing
authority under the Housing Act 1985. By a tenancy agreement dated March 25
1993 that property was let to Robert Kelvin Lovatt and his wife, Margaret Rose
Lovatt.
The tenancy
was a secure tenancy within the meaning of Part IV of the Housing Act 1985. It
could not be brought to an end by the landlords except by an order of the court
— section 82(1) of that Act. On January 26 1996 the council gave notice to Mr
and Mrs Lovatt, pursuant to section 83 of the Act, of their intention to apply
to the court for an order for possession.
Section 84(1)
of the Housing Act 1985 requires that the court shall not make an order for the
possession of a dwelling-house let under a secure tenancy except on one or more
of the grounds set out in Schedule 2. The notice given on January 26 1996
specified grounds 1 and 2 as the grounds upon which the court would be asked to
make the order for possession. Those grounds are:
Ground 1
Rent lawfully
due from the tenant has not been paid or an obligation of the tenancy has been
broken or not performed.
Ground 2
The tenant or
a person residing in the dwelling-house has been guilty of conduct which is a
nuisance or annoyance to neighbours, or has been convicted of using the
dwelling-house or allowing it to be used for immoral or illegal purposes.
The tenancy
agreement of March 25 1993 was, as might be expected, in common form. It
included an obligation on the part of the tenant to ensure that no nuisance or
annoyance was caused to neighbours. The section 83 notice specified, as
particulars under ground 1, a breach of that obligation arising out of the same
acts as were relied upon, under ground 2, as particulars of ‘conduct which is a
nuisance or annoyance to neighbours’. Those particulars are set out under 12 subparagraphs.
In substance they may be summarised in the single allegation that Mr and Mrs
Lovatt permitted their children (in particular their three eldest sons) to
cause persistent nuisance and annoyance to their neighbours on the Spencer
Estate.
Application
for a possession order was made to Northampton County Court. The district judge
was satisfied that the council had established that Mr and Mrs Lovatt’s three
sons had committed numerous acts of a criminal or antisocial nature which were
the cause of nuisance or annoyance to other residents on the Spencer Estate.
Those acts, which are summarised in the judgment of Henry LJ and which I need
not rehearse, were committed on or immediately adjacent to the Spencer Estate,
but were not committed on or immediately adjacent to the demised premises.
Nevertheless, the district judge held that both grounds 1 and 2 had been made
out.
Section 84(2)
of the Act requires that the court shall not make an order under either of
grounds 1 or 2 unless it considers it reasonable to do so. The district judge
considered whether it was reasonable to make an order for possession; he was
satisfied that it was and he made the order sought. On appeal, the county court
judge upheld the district judge’s decision in every respect.
Mr and Mrs
Lovatt appeal to this court on the grounds that the district judge — and, in
upholding his decision, the county court judge — erred in law by holding that
nuisance or annoyance committed away from the demised premises was a relevant
nuisance or annoyance either for the purposes of the breach of the obligation
in the tenancy agreement relied on under ground 1 or for the purposes of ground
2.
There is no
dispute that Mr and Mrs Lovatt’s three sons were, at the relevant time, persons
residing at the dwelling-house, 174 Gladstone
Mrs Lovatt were responsible for the acts of their children. It was not argued —
and, in my view, could not be said in the present case — that nuisance or
annoyance arising from the acts of the three sons (if within the scope of the
obligation in the tenancy agreement) did not put Mr and Mrs Lovatt themselves
in breach of an obligation to ‘ensure’ that that nuisance or annoyance was not
caused. There is no challenge to the findings of the district judge that the
three sons were guilty of conduct which was a nuisance or annoyance to those —
including Mrs Weston, Mrs Gillett (the headteacher at Spencer Middle School),
the children attending that school and its governors and the victims of the
burglaries and other criminal acts of which they were convicted — whom the
district judge identified in his judgment. Accordingly, the only relevant
question for the purposes of both ground 1 and ground 2 is whether those to
whom the sons had caused nuisance and annoyance — as found by the district
judge — were ‘neighbours’ within whatever meaning that word should bear in the
context of the tenancy agreement or in the statutory context of Schedule 2 to
the Housing Act 1985.
Mr Wood QC,
who appears on this appeal on behalf of Mr and Mrs Lovatt, contends that
‘neighbours’ means only those affected by what the tenant is doing on or at the
demised premises. In the absence of any other words in either the tenancy
agreement or the statute which limit or define the place on or at which the
acts of ‘nuisance or annoyance’ are committed, he is driven to rely on the word
‘neighbours’ itself as providing the answer not only to the question ‘nuisance
or annoyance to whom’ but also to the question ‘nuisance or annoyance from
where’.
It is clear
that the identification of ‘neighbours’ requires some test of proximity; but,
if Mr Wood’s submission is correct, the question whether the person suffering
the nuisance or annoyance is a ‘neighbour’ depends not only on where he or she
resides but also on what the person causing the nuisance or annoyance is
actually doing. Who are ‘neighbours’ in relation to smoke from a bonfire in the
garden of 174 Gladstone Road will depend on which way the wind is blowing. Who
are ‘neighbours’ in relation to the playing of loud music will depend on how
loud the music is played. If that is the correct test I doubt if it would have
been recognised by anyone but a lawyer familiar with Lord Atkin’s answer to the
question which he posed, in a different context, in Donoghue v Stevenson
[1932] AC 562 at p580. I find it impossible to believe that tenants on the
Spencer Estate would say, in answer to the question ‘who are your neighbours’,
that that would depend on what they, themselves, were doing at the time. Unless
driven to do so, I would be reluctant to hold that the word ‘neighbours’ has to
be given a meaning in relation to public sector tenancies (whether in a tenancy
agreement or in the statute) which does not accord with ordinary usage and
understanding.
It was not
argued that the considerations applicable to determine whether there had been a
breach of the obligation in the tenancy agreement differed from those
applicable to the statutory test under ground 2. Nevertheless, it does not
appear to me self-evident that, applying well recognised principles of
construction, the true meaning to be given to the word ‘neighbours’ in an
agreement made in 1993 must necessarily be the same as that to be given to that
word in a statute of 1985. I think it right, therefore, to give separate
consideration to the tenancy agreement and the statute.
In construing
the tenancy agreement it is relevant to have in mind the following matters
which formed part of the factual background which must have been known to both
the contracting parties: (i) the council were the local housing authority; (ii)
in letting the dwelling-house, 174 Gladstone Road, to Mr and Mrs Lovatt, the
council were carrying out their statutory functions under the Housing Acts;
(iii) the dwelling-house was part of the council’s Spencer Estate; (iv) there
were, or were very likely to be, many other council tenants on the Spencer
Estate; (v) the tenancy agreement was, as appears on its face, a common form
which would be, or which would be very likely to be, used for all or most of
the tenancies on the estate; (vi) the council’s tenants, as Henry LJ has
pointed out, were likely to include many who are needy, vulnerable, isolated
and probably without the ability to move from housing made a misery by the
conduct of others on the estate; (vii) the council’s tenants were likely to
include some who, for whatever reason, would or might have a tendency to behave
in an antisocial manner; and (viii) it was likely to be in the interests of all
tenants on the estate that there should be some obligation, enforceable by the
council, as a safeguard against nuisance or annoyance arising from the
activities of other tenants.
Further, as it
seems to me, it would have been obvious to Mr and Mrs Lovatt when they entered
into the tenancy agreement that the council would be concerned, in their own
interest, to ensure (so far as they could) that their tenants should not commit
acts which caused nuisance or annoyance to other persons residing or working on
the estate. As it was put by Lindley LJ in Tod-Heatley v Benham (supra)
at p96, when describing the stance of the owner of the reversion in that case:
It is not
because I live there, but because my tenants come to me and complain, and it
gives me trouble and vexation, since what annoys them is a trouble and vexation
to me.
The council
had an obvious interest in taking whatever steps they could to minimise the
complaints which would be made to them in relation to activities on one of
their housing estates.
Against this
background it is not at all surprising to find a number of obligations in the
common form tenancy agreement which are directed to the quality of life to be
enjoyed by others on the estate. These include an obligation not (without
consent) to keep any animal which might cause nuisance or discomfort to
neighbours; an obligation not to cut down or remove any established tree or
shrub or to alter landscaping provided by the council; an obligation not to
park vehicles, caravans or boats on any verge or amenity area provided by the
council; and, immediately preceding the obligation to ensure that no nuisance
or annoyance is caused, an obligation to ‘ensure that neither the tenant nor
any person residing in the premises commits within the neighbourhood any act of
abuse, whether verbal or physical, directed at individuals or groups on the
basis of colour or origin’. That latter obligation was placed under the heading
‘Racial Harassment Among Neighbours’.
In my view,
the obligations to which I have referred were included in the tenancy agreement
so that the council could, if they chose, enforce them for their own protection
and for the advantage, protection or benefit of those living or working in the
neighbourhood of which 174 Gladstone Road forms part. In the context of the
tenancy agreement, ‘neighbours’ means those living or working in the
neighbourhood. I am not persuaded that, in this context, ‘neighbours’ has the
narrower meaning for which Mr Wood QC contends: that is to say, means only
those affected by what is done on or at the demised premises. Clearly, it does
not have that meaning in the expression ‘Racial Harassment Among Neighbours’.
Equally clearly, the restriction on keeping animals, the prohibition against
cutting down trees and the prohibition against parking on verges or amenity
areas are there for the benefit of those within the neighbourhood, not solely
for the benefit of those likely to be affected by anything done on or at the
premises.
What, then,
are the boundaries of the neighbourhood of which 174 Gladstone Road forms part?
I find assistance in the definition of ‘neighbourhood’ contained in the Oxford
English Dictionary:
The people
living near to a certain place or within a certain range … a community, a
certain number of people who live close together. A district or portion of a
town … especially considered in reference to the character or circumstances of
its inhabitants; a small but relatively self-contained sector of a larger urban
area.
In my view,
there can be no real doubt that, in the context of this tenancy agreement, the
neighbourhood to which both parties would have expected the tenant’s
obligations to apply was the Spencer Estate and its immediate surrounds.
I turn to
consider the position under the Housing Act 1985. I accept that the provisions
in section 84 and Schedule 2 are not intended to be used as an instrument of
social control, outside the relationship of landlord and tenant. But, within
the framework of that relationship, those provisions do provide a means of social
control. It is, I think, important to keep in mind that Part IV of the Housing
Act 1985 enacts a code applicable to public sector tenancies which reflects
social policy. The code varies or limits the private law rights which would
otherwise arise under the contractual relationship of landlord and tenant. It
gives to the tenant a security of tenure which he would not otherwise have. It
should be a matter of no surprise that that security is given upon terms which,
themselves, reflect objectives of social policy. Ground 6 in Schedule 2
provides an obvious example. It is a ground for possession (subject always to
the overriding requirement of reasonableness) that the tenancy was acquired by
an assignment which involved the payment of a premium. That, as it seems to me,
is a clear reflection of a policy objective that secure tenancies should not be
exchanged for profit. Ground 5 provides another example. It is a ground for
possession that a tenant has induced the council to grant the tenancy by a
false statement made knowingly or recklessly, whether or not under the general
law the contract of tenancy could be set aside.
Ground 1
enables the court to give the landlord possession where the tenant is not
fulfilling his obligations under the tenancy agreement. Grounds 2, 3 and 4
reflect provisions which one would expect to see included for the protection of
the landlord in a well drawn tenancy agreement. In so far as the corresponding
provisions are included in the tenancy agreement ,grounds 2, 3 and 4 add little,
if anything, to ground 1. The significance of grounds 2, 3 and 4, as it seems
to me, is that they enable the court (subject to the requirement of
reasonableness) to give the landlord possession, even if it has not been made a
contractual term of the tenancy that the tenant or a person residing with him
will not cause nuisance or annoyance to neighbours or will not commit acts of
waste on the premises or ill-treat furniture provided by the landlord (as the
case may be). Those grounds must be taken to reflect the intention of the
legislature that, as a matter of policy and whether or not the landlord has
thought it right to require contractual obligations to be undertaken by the
tenant in those respects, a tenant who causes nuisance or annoyance to neighbours
— or who commits waste or ill-treats furniture provided by the landlord —
should lose the absolute right to security of tenure which he would otherwise
have under the Act. The grounds are clearly included for the protection of the
landlord and reflect the legislative intention that conduct of the nature
described is conduct which the landlord ought not to be required to suffer
without recourse to the remedy of a possession order.
The question,
therefore, is at what sort of conduct is ground 2 directed. If that ground has
been included for the protection of the landlord, should conduct within it be
confined to conduct on or at the premises, or should it extend to conduct
within the neighbourhood. It is clear that there must be some link between the
persons affected by the conduct, the council as landlords of the demised
premises and the tenant (or the persons residing with him) whose conduct is
causing the nuisance or annoyance. In my view, it is essential to keep in mind
that ground 2 has been included for the protection of the council. The council
require protection, in this respect, not because the conduct is a direct cause
of nuisance or annoyance to them in their own enjoyment of neighbouring
property or because the conduct damages their interest in the reversion of the
demised premises, but because, whether reasonably or unreasonably — but, in my
view, incontrovertibly — those who live or work on a council estate and are
affected by the conduct of council tenants on that estate will expect the
council to do something about it. The housing department will receive
complaints which will have to be addressed. That will take management time and
will cost money. Further, the council will find it that much the more difficult
to relocate other applicants in need of housing into properties on an estate
which is perceived to be out of control.
I agree with
Henry LJ, whose judgment I have had the advantage of reading in draft, that the
link, for the purposes of ground 2, is the legitimate interest of the council
in requiring their tenants (and those who reside with them) to respect the
neighbourhood in which they live. The conduct against which ground 2 must have
been intended to provide the council with some protection is not confined to
what is being done by their tenants and those residing with them on the demised
property itself, but extends to what is being done within the area in which
persons affected may fairly regard the council (as local housing authority and
landlords) as responsible for the amenities and quality of life, including
freedom from harassment, enjoyment of which they are entitled to expect. The
conduct at which ground 2 is aimed is conduct within the neighbourhood which
causes nuisance and annoyance to others within the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood,
for this purpose, is the area with which the council are identified, by reason
of their status as local housing authority and landlords, as having
responsibility for the amenities and quality of life; that is to say the area
within which persons affected may fairly regard the council as having some
responsibility for those whose conduct is causing the nuisance or annoyance.
The persons affected will be neighbours for the purposes of ground 2. Who those
persons are in any particular case will, of course, depend on the circumstances
of that case. In the present case I am satisfied that the district judge was
entitled to take the view that they included the persons identified in his
judgment.
For these
reasons I take the view that, in holding that both ground 1 and ground 2 were
established on the facts found by the district judge, the courts below reached
the correct conclusion. On that basis, there is no challenge in this court to
the finding that it was reasonable to make an order for possession. I would
dismiss this appeal.
Appeal
dismissed
