Unlike assured tenants, the many thousands of tenants who occupy their homes under the Rent Act 1977 will, with very few exceptions, owe their security to statutory tenancies that arose when their initial tenancy agreements came to an end.
To get on the same wavelength as the House of Lords in Cadogan Estates Ltd v McMahon [2001] 06 EG 164, you have to remind yourself that: (a) the terms of the old contractual tenancy continue to apply, but only in so far as they are consistent with a statutory tenancy; and (b) the landlord has (not surprisingly) a discretionary ground for possession where the tenant is in breach of any “obligation of the previous protected [ie contractual] tenancy which is applicable to the statutory tenancy”: see Case I of Schedule 15 to the Act.
In Cadogan, the tenancy agreement contained a forfeiture clause. Among the events giving L a right to re-enter was the bankruptcy of T, who duly obliged some nine years after the lease had expired. It was common ground that the forfeiture clause itself could not apply to the statutory tenancy. Nevertheless, L contended that T was in breach of an obligation falling within Case 1.
T said: “Nonsense: there was no obligation, in the shape of a covenant, not to go bankrupt. Bankruptcy was simply one of the events capable of triggering the right forfeit. Even if there were a corresponding obligation, it could not subsist independently of the non-transmissible forfeiture clause.”
Those arguments were rejected by the majority of the lordships (Lord Millett vigorously dissenting), who were impressed, above all, by the oft-repeated proposition that the interpretation of the Rent Acts called for a uniquely robust approach.
Unlike assured tenants, the many thousands of tenants who occupy their homes under the Rent Act 1977 will, with very few exceptions, owe their security to statutory tenancies that arose when their initial tenancy agreements came to an end.
To get on the same wavelength as the House of Lords in Cadogan Estates Ltd v McMahon [2001] 06 EG 164, you have to remind yourself that: (a) the terms of the old contractual tenancy continue to apply, but only in so far as they are consistent with a statutory tenancy; and (b) the landlord has (not surprisingly) a discretionary ground for possession where the tenant is in breach of any “obligation of the previous protected [ie contractual] tenancy which is applicable to the statutory tenancy”: see Case I of Schedule 15 to the Act.
In Cadogan, the tenancy agreement contained a forfeiture clause. Among the events giving L a right to re-enter was the bankruptcy of T, who duly obliged some nine years after the lease had expired. It was common ground that the forfeiture clause itself could not apply to the statutory tenancy. Nevertheless, L contended that T was in breach of an obligation falling within Case 1.
T said: “Nonsense: there was no obligation, in the shape of a covenant, not to go bankrupt. Bankruptcy was simply one of the events capable of triggering the right forfeit. Even if there were a corresponding obligation, it could not subsist independently of the non-transmissible forfeiture clause.”
Those arguments were rejected by the majority of the lordships (Lord Millett vigorously dissenting), who were impressed, above all, by the oft-repeated proposition that the interpretation of the Rent Acts called for a uniquely robust approach.
