Landlord and tenant — Long lease — Joint tenants — Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part I — Whether section 4 notices valid — Whether preliminary point properly taken
In 1981 the appellant landlord acquired
the reversion to a 99-year term granted in 1894 at a rent of £8 pa. In March
1992 the respondent tenants acquired the unexpired term of the lease. Following
the expiry of the lease in September 1993, the landlord served on the tenants
two notices under section 4 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 to determine
the lease in respect of two parts of the leasehold property, two self-contained
maisonettes. In the court below it was held, as a preliminary issue, that the
notices were defective in that as there was only one tenancy, that could only
be determined by one notice in respect of the whole of the premises. The
landlord appealed contending that after the lease expired there had, or could
have arisen, a continuation tenancy or tenancies. Accordingly the tenants may
have the protection of the Rent Acts, and that position needed to be determined
by the court before deciding the validity of the notices.
matter that the original contractual tenancy was between the landlord and the
respondents as joint tenants. Section 3 of the Act is looking at the position
as of the date of termination of that tenancy. To decide the nature of the
tenancy which continued after the contractual term ended, the judge needed to
decide whether, if the property had been let at a rack-rent, any tenant would
be entitled to retain possession of any part or parts of the premises. The long
lease having expired the judge should have gone on to consider what was the
position created by the 1954 Act, read in the light of the Rent Act 1977. In
particular, who was entitled to retain possession on the assumption that the
Rent Act applied. That could only be decided after hearing the evidence. It was
not a pure matter of law suitable to be determined as a preliminary point. It
follows that only when that has been decided can the question of the validity
of the notices be considered.
The following cases are referred to in
this report.
Herbert v Byrne [1964] 1 WLR 519; [1964] 1
All ER 882, CA
Lloyd v Sadler [1978] QB 774; [1978] 2
WLR 721; [1978] 2 All ER 529; (1978) 35 P&CR 78; [1978] 1 EGLR 76; [1978]
EGD 291; 246 EG 479, CA
Regalian Securities Ltd v Ramsden [1981] 1 WLR
611; [1981] 2 All ER 65; (1981) 14 HLR 84, HL
This was an appeal against the decision
of Judge Reynolds, sitting in Central London County Court, dismissing an
application by the appellants, St Ermins Property Co Ltd, for settlement of
terms of a statutory tenancy pursuant to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, in
proceedings against the respondents, Jethalal Lalji Patel, Jashuben Jethalal
Patel, Manalal Lalji Patel and Gunvant Ravji.
Clare Padley (instructed by Eversleys)
appeared for the appellant company; Julius Seal (instructed by Henneberry)
represented the respondents.
Giving the first judgment at the
invitation of Butler-Sloss LJ, ALDOUS LJ said: Judge Reynolds dismissed
an application by St Ermins Property Co Ltd for settlement of terms of a
statutory tenancy pursuant to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 upon the grounds
that section 4 notices served by St Ermins were defective. St Ermins appealed.
They contend that the judge should not have decided the issue as a preliminary
point without hearing evidence and in any case he was wrong to conclude that
the notices were fatally defective.
Facts
By a lease dated September 24 1894, 16
Minster Road, London NW2, was let for a term of 99 years at a rent of £8 pa.
Some time prior to 1963 the remainder of the term of that lease was assigned to
Holborn Borough Council and subsequently passed to Camden London Borough
Council. It seems that by 1963 it had been divided into two self-contained
maisonettes consisting of ground floor and basement and first and second
floors. By 1973 they were separately rated. The basement and ground floor had a
rateable value of £306 and the first- and second-floor maisonette’s rateable
value was £318.
In 1981 the freehold reversion was
purchased by St Ermins and they served upon Camden London Borough Council a
schedule of dilapidations. On March 19 1992 the unexpired term of the lease was
sold at auction to the respondents to this appeal. It was described in the
auction particulars as:
A semi-detached
property with accommodation on four floors arranged as two self-contained maisonettes
comprising:
Self-contained
upper maisonette:
First & Second Floors: Three bedrooms,
Reception room, Kitchen, Bathroom/wc
Self-contained
lower maisonette:
Ground & lower floors: Three
bedrooms, Living room, Kitchen, Bathroom wc
The original term of the lease expired on
September 29 1993 and on July 27 1994 St Ermins served upon the respondents two
section 4 notices. The first was in respect of basement and ground floor. The
second was in respect of first- and second-floor flat. Both those notices were
sent with a letter in these terms:
We enclose by way of service upon you
Notice pursuant to Section 4 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 expressly
without prejudice and without any admission as to the status of any or all of
you, either now or at the date of termination of the previous Lease of the
premises, namely 28th September 1994.
In particular it is not accepted that the
qualifying conditions were fulfilled under s 2 of the aforesaid Act on that
date or at all.
It is noteworthy that both those notices
were served upon the respondents who were the purchasers of the unexpired
period of the term of the lease.
On December 15 1994 St Ermins issued an
originating application for determination of terms of statutory tenancies. The
first was in respect of the first- and second-floor flat, 16 Minster Road, and
the second was in respect of the basement and ground-floor flat at the same
address. I need not go into the terms of those notices as they are not relevant
to the issue before this court. The answers served on behalf of the respondents
stated that the address of the premises was wrongly stated and that if a proper
notice had been served, then there should be a tenancy of the whole premises.
Those answers also raised a number of other issues which are not relevant to
this appeal.
All the issues which were raised on the
pleadings came before Judge Reynolds on October 26 1995. On that date he
acceded to the submission of counsel for the respondents that the validity of
the notices should be determined as a preliminary issue. Having heard
submissions, he decided that the notices were defective. He ended his judgment
in this way:
I make these rulings with considerable
regret, since all the parties are here and negotiating sensibly and it is
inevitable that the effect of my ruling will simply cause delay and the
expenditure of unnecessary costs.
The judge’s concluding remarks were
pertinent at the time when he made them, but the respondents served on October
27 1995 a notice under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 of their desire to acquire
the freehold of the property.
Judgment
The judge’s reasons for coming to the
conclusion that the notices were defective are contained in this passage:
Stripped to the essential issue, the
central question is: does the word ‘tenancy’ in sections 1 to 4 relate to the
tenancy created by the long lease or does it refer to the tenancy created by
the residential occupancy after the lease has come to an end by effluxion of
time?
The judge went on to refer to three cases
and continued:
All of these cases deal with properties
which have been divided into separate flats. However, all deal with the
substantive rights of a tenant who was occupying part and may or may not have
intended to occupy the other part. None deals with the question of the
appropriate notice to be served. Perhaps the clearest indication is given as
one might expect in the judgment of Diplock LJ in Haines v Herbert
…
After quoting from that judgment the
judge continued:
Applying that to the present facts as
they are presented to me, at the date when the long lease expired, each
maisonette at 16 Minster Road was separately used as an independent dwelling
house, but the purpose in each case was residential.
The judge then referred to the judgments
of Lord Denning MR and Wynn LJ and continued:
Accordingly, it seems to me that it is
not permissible to say that this long lease split by operation of section 22(3)
on the expiry of the long lease. It was a long lease of premises used for the
purpose of residential occupation, and remained use for the purpose of
residential occupation at the end of the term, albeit as two residential units
rather than one.
In these circumstances, I am driven
reluctantly to the conclusion that any notice served in relation to 16 Minster
Road should be served in respect of the entire premises and that accordingly
each notice served here is fatally defective. I am reinforced in my conclusion
by the fact that, notwithstanding the two separate notices and the two separate
sets of proceedings, nevertheless the same four respondents are said to be
entitled to the protection of both maisonettes and the principal issue in
dispute, namely the repairs relate to the whole house as though it were a
single premises, which is wholly inconsistent with the argument advanced that
here there are two quite separate dwelling-houses.
Appeal
Miss Clare Padley, who appeared for St
Ermins, submitted that the judge had wrongly interpreted the provisions of the
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. In essence she submitted that the lease had
expired on September 29 1993 and thereafter there arose, or could have arisen,
a continuation tenancy or tenancies. She submitted that section 3 of the
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 dealt with the position when the contractual
tenancy ceased. Thus the section, when it used the word ‘tenancy’, in some
places referred to the old contractual tenancy and in other places referred to
the tenancy continued by the Act pending any section 4 notice being served.
Further it was clear from section 3(3)
and (4) that the tenant of a tenancy arising as a continuation tenancy under
the Act might only be entitled to protection in respect of part of the
building. She submitted
person or persons entitled to the protection of that Act. It followed that the
entitlement of any tenant had to be determined by the court having regard to
the nature of the premises and their occupation. That had not been done by the
judge who had wrongly determined the issue as a preliminary point without
hearing any evidence. Miss Padley also submitted that, upon the judge’s
assumption that the maisonettes were separately occupied, he should have
concluded that the notices were good notices.
Mr Julius Seal, who appeared for the
respondents, supported the reasoning of the judge. He submitted that notices to
quit, both at common law and under the Act had, to be valid notices, to extend
to the whole premises the subject of the tenancy. In this case the lease
remained a single lease and therefore the service of two notices in respect of
two parts of the property could not constitute a proper notice. He drew our
attention to section 3(2) and (3) of the Landlord and Tenant Act and submitted
that in this case, where there were joint tenants under the contractual
tenancy, the premises qualifying for protection was the aggregate of the
premises as defined in that section. Thus the word ‘tenant’ in that subsection
should be understood as meaning as joint tenants, with the result that the
tenancy which continued after termination was a tenancy for the whole premises.
There was only one tenancy and that could only be determined by a notice in
respect of the whole of the premises. Mr Seal advanced alternative submissions
which I will come to deal with later.
Miss Padley did not dispute that the
notice to quit had for normal purposes to be directed to the property let.
However, it was her case that the section 4 notice had to be directed to the
particular tenants in respect of those parts of the property over which they
had rights. In effect her submission was that the Act was considering those
persons who had individual rights equivalent to those required under the Rent
Acts.
The essential difference between the
parties concerns the nature of the relationship between St Ermins and the
respondents after the 99-year lease came to an end. That relationship arose by
statute and therefore to resolve the issue upon this appeal it is necessary to
turn to the relevant statutory provisions.
The Landlord and Tenant Act states in its
long title that it is an Act to provide security of tenure for occupying
tenants under certain leases of residential property at low rents and for
occupying subtenants of tenants under such leases to enable occupied property
for business, professional or certain other purposes to obtain new tenancies in
certain cases.
The relevant provisions for the purposes
of this case are these:
Protection of residential tenants on
termination of long tenancies at low rents
1. On the termination in accordance with
the provisions of this Part of this Act of a tenancy to which this section
applies the tenant shall be entitled to the protection of the [Rent Act]
subject to and in accordance with those provisions.
Tenancies to which s 1 applies
2.– (1) The foregoing section applies to any
long tenancy at a low rent, being a tenancy as respects which for the time
being the following condition (hereinafter referred to as ‘the qualifying
condition’) is fulfilled, that is to say that the circumstances (as respects
the property comprised in the tenancy, the use of that property, and all other
relevant matters) are such that on the coming to an end of the tenancy at that
time the tenant would, if the tenancy had not been one at a low rent, be
entitled by virtue of the [Rent Act] to retain possession of the whole or part
of the property comprised in the tenancy … .
Continuation of tenancies to which s 1
applies
3.– (1) A tenancy which is current
immediately before the term date and is then a tenancy to which section one of
this Act applies shall not come to an end on that date except by being
terminated under the provisions of this Part of this Act, and if not then so
terminated shall subject to those provisions continue until so terminated and shall,
while continuing by virtue of this section, be deemed (notwithstanding any
change in circumstances) to be a tenancy to which section one of this Act
applies.
(2) Where by virtue of the last foregoing
subsection a tenancy is continued after the term date, then —
(a) if the premises qualifying for
protection are the whole of the property comprised in the tenancy, the tenancy
shall continue at the same rent and in other respects on the same terms as
before the term date;
(b) if the premises qualifying for
protection are only part of the property comprised in the tenancy, the tenancy
while continuing after the term date shall have effect as a tenancy of those
premises to the exclusion of the remainder of the property, and at a rent to be
ascertained by apportioning the rent payable before the term date as between
those premises and the remainder of the property, and in other respects on the
same terms (subject to any necessary modifications) as before the term date.
(3) In this Part of this Act the expression
‘the premises qualifying for protection’ means the aggregate of the premises of
which, if the tenancy in question were not one at a low rent, the tenant would
be entitled to retain possession by virtue of the [Rent Act] after the coming
to an end of the tenancy term date.
(4) Any question arising under paragraph
(b) of subsection (2) of this section as to the premises comprised in a tenancy
continuing as mentioned in that paragraph, as to the rent payable in respect of
a tenancy so continuing, or as to any of the terms of such a tenancy, shall be
determined by agreement between the landlord and the tenant or, on the
application of either of them, by the court.
Termination of tenancy by the landlord
4.– (1) The landlord may terminate a tenancy
to which section one of this Act applies by notice given to the tenant in the
prescribed form specifying the date at which the tenancy is to come to an end
(hereinafter referred to as ‘the date of termination’), being either the term
date of the tenancy or at a later date:
Provided that this subsection has effect
subject to the provisions of this Part of this Act as to the annulment of
notices in certain cases and subject to the provisions of Part IV of this Act
as to the interim continuation of tenancies pending the disposal of
applications to the court.
(2) A notice under the last foregoing
subsection shall not have effect unless it is given not more than twelve nor
less than six months before the date of termination specified therein.
(3) A notice under subsection (1) of this
section shall not have effect unless it specifies the premises which the
landlord believes to be, or to be likely to be, the premises qualifying for
protection and either —
(a) it contains proposals for a statutory
tenancy, as defined by subsection (3) of section seven of this Act, or
(b) it contains notice that, if the
tenant is not willing to give up possession at the date of termination of the
tenancy, of all the property then comprised in the tenancy, the landlord
proposes to apply to the court, on one or more of the grounds mentioned in
section twelve of this Act, for possession of the property comprised in the
tenancy, and states the ground or grounds on which he proposes to apply.
(4) A notice under subsection (1) of this
section shall invite the tenant, within two months after the giving of the
notice, to notify the landlord in writing whether he is willing to give up
possession as mentioned in paragraph (b) of the last foregoing subsection… .
22.– (3) In determining, for the purposes of
any provision of this Part of this Act, whether the property comprised in a
tenancy or any part of that property was let as a separate dwelling, the nature
of the property or part at the time of the creation of the tenancy shall be
deemed to have been the same as its nature at the time in relation to which the
question arises, and the purpose for which it was let under the tenancy shall
be deemed to have been the same as the purpose for which it is or was used at
the last-mentioned time.
The principle underlying the 1954 Act was
stated by Lord Denning MR in Herbert v Byrne [1964] 1 WLR 519 at
p525:
The principle underlying the Act of 1954
is this: it brings these long leases at a low rent within the Rent Acts. At the
end of the long lease the leaseholder, if he is in occupation of the house, is
entitled to remain in possession as a statutory tenant. He is given the
self-same security of tenure as any other statutory tenant except that the
freeholder can turn him out, not only on the familiar grounds, such as non-payment
of rent, but also if the landlord wants to demolish the house for
redevelopment: see section 12(1). There are elaborate provisions made for
seeing that the tenant pays a reasonable rent and for the doing of repairs: see
sections 7 and 8. The Act of 1954 also protects the sub-tenants who are
lawfully there. Their interest no longer ends with the long lease. If the
leaseholder remains in occupation himself as a statutory tenant they continued
to hold their rooms from him. If he is not in occupation himself, they become
direct tenants of the freeholder: see section 15. It is to be noticed that in
1957, when the legislature freed many houses from restriction, these houses let
on long leases at a low rent were still kept under control. The former limits
of rateable value continue to apply to them so as to give
1957. Long leaseholders are therefore protected to a greater extent than the
tenants of other houses.
There is this to be said, however; in
order that the Act of 1954 should operate and protect the leaseholder, there is
a ‘qualifying condition’ to be fulfilled. It is set out in section 2(1) of the
Act, and comes to this: you are to look at the position at the end of the lease,
and ask yourself whether the leaseholder would have been protected if it had
been not a long lease at a low rent, but a short lease at a rack-rent. If the
leaseholder would have qualified under the old Rent Acts for protection on the
expiry of such a short lease, he qualifies now, under the Act of 1954, for
protection on the expiry of the long lease, but with this difference: In
determining whether he qualifies or not, you do not look at the terms of the
old long lease itself as you would look at the terms of a short lease; see Wolfe
v Hogan; Welch v Nagy; Whitty v Scott-Russell.
You look at the state of affairs as it actually existed at the end of the long
lease. That is made clear by section 22(3) of the Act. For instance, ‘the
nature of the property’ might have been different at the beginning of the long
lease from what it was at the end. It might have been one dwelling-house at the
beginning of the lease, but converted into three separate self-contained flats
at the end of it. ‘The purpose for which’ it was let might be different. It
might have been let for a shop at the beginning, but used as a dwelling-house
at the end. In short, in order to ascertain whether the whole or any part of
the property was ‘let as a separate dwelling’ so as to qualify for protection,
you look at the state of affairs not at the beginning of the lease, nor at the
date of the hearing, but at the end of the lease.
The relevant provisions of the Rent Act
are:
1. Protected tenants and tenancies
Subject to this Part of this Act, a
tenancy under which a dwelling-house (which may be a house or part of a house)
is let as a separate dwelling is a protected tenancy for the purposes of this
Act.
Any reference in this Act to a protected
tenant shall be construed accordingly… .
2. Statutory tenants and tenancies
(1) Subject to this Part of this Act —
(a) after the termination of a protected
tenancy of a dwelling-house the person who, immediately before that
termination, was the protected tenant of the dwelling-house shall, if and so
long as he occupies the dwelling-house as his residence, be the statutory
tenant of it; and
(b) Part I of Schedule 1 to this Act
shall have effect for determining what person (if any) is the statutory tenant
of a dwelling-house [or, as the case may be, is entitled to an assured tenancy
of a dwelling-house by succession] at any time after the death of a person who,
immediately before his death, was either a protected tenant of the
dwelling-house or the statutory tenant of it by virtue of paragraph (a) above.
Section 1 of that Act is directed to
premises let as a separate dwelling-house. Section 2 makes it clears that a
statutory tenant may only be a statutory tenant of the part he resides in even
though it is only part of what he had hitherto been the contractual tenant: see
Regalian Securities Ltd v Ramsden [1981] 1 WLR 611. Further it is
directed to individual rights. That was made clear in Lloyd v Sadler
[1978] QB 774*. In that case two joint tenants were the tenants of a flat. One
of the joint tenants left the flat to get married. She did not intend to resume
and did not in fact resume occupation. The Court of Appeal held that in that
case the other joint tenant had retained rights under the Act which was then in
force. Lawton LJ said at p790:
*Editor’s note: Also reported at [1978] 1
EGLR 76
The object of the Act of 1968 was to give
security of tenure to persons, and one of two joint tenants might have wanted
it and the other not. The mischief for which Parliament provided a remedy was
eviction for reasons other than those which the Act deemed good. If Miss Sadler
has to leave the flat because Miss Lunt did not want to stay there any longer
that is not a reason which was specified in the Act. I am satisfied that
section 3(1)(a) can be construed so that one of two joint tenants can
become ‘the statutory tenant.’
Section 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act
1954 determines the nature of the tenancy to which section 1 applies. It is
section 3 which provides the tenant’s protection. It is, in my view, clear from
that section that a tenancy is continued by the Act after the contractual
tenancy has determined, but only in so far as the premises qualified for
protection. Such premises may, according to subsection (2), consist of the
whole or part of the premises. The premises that qualify for protection are
defined in subsection (3) in this way:
… means the aggregate of the premises of
which, if the tenancy in question were not one at a low rent, the tenant would
be entitled to retain possession by virtue of the [Rent Act] after the coming
to an end of the tenancy at the term date.
In my view, the intention of parliament
was to give to tenants to which the Act related similar rights to those enjoyed
under the Rent Act. As Lord Denning MR has said in Herbert v Byrne
in the passage to which I have referred:
The principle underlying the Act of 1954
is this: it brings these long leases at a low rent within the Rent Acts.
Later he went on in the passage to which
I have referred to say that the qualifying condition was set out in section
2(1) of the Act and came to this:
… you are to look at the position at the
end of the lease, and ask yourself whether the leaseholder would have been
protected if it had been not a long lease at a low rent, but a short lease at a
rack-rent.
Adopting that principle, which seems to
me to reflect the intention of parliament, the rights which attached under the
Rent Act were rights which attached to individuals. That is clear by reason of
sections 1 and 2 of the Rent Act 1977 and was made clear by the Court of Appeal
in the passage I have read from the judgment of Lloyd LJ in Lloyd v Sadler
[1978] QB 774.
In my view, the tenant that is being
considered in section 3(4) is that person who under the Rent Act would be
considered to be the tenant, namely the individual having appropriate rights.
That is consistent with this note in Halsbury Statutes appearing at
p471:
If the date of termination coincides with
the term date, this may constitute more than the premises qualifying for
protection since only that part of the property which could come within the
Rent Act 1977, this part of this title post, qualifies for protection. If the
date of termination is later than the term date, the property then comprised in
the tenancy would be only that part of the property qualifying for protection,
since only that part can be included in a continued tenancy under s 3 ante (see
s 3(2)(b) ante).
In my view, it does not matter that in
this case the original contractual tenancy was between the landlord and the
respondents as joint tenants. Section 3 is looking at the position as of the
date of termination of that tenancy. Thus to decide the nature of the tenancy
which continued after the contractual term ended the judge needed to decide
whether if the property had been let at a rack-rent any tenant would be
entitled to retain possession of any part or parts of the premises.
In the present case the judge did not
determine, and could not have determined without evidence, whether the premises
which qualified for protection extended in whole or in part to the premises.
That depended upon who, if anybody, was entitled to retain possession of a part
or the whole of the premises. That required consideration of whether any of the
respondents, and if so who, would be entitled to Rent Act protection if the
premises had not been let at a rack-rent. Until that had been considered and
decided it was not possible to come to any conclusion as to whether the notices
given were fatally flawed.
The judge concluded that it was not
permissible to say that this long lease split by operation of section 22(3) on
the expiry of the long lease. He was right to come to that conclusion. However,
the long lease had expired and therefore he should have gone on to consider
what was the position created by the 1954 Act, read in the light of the Rent
Act 1977. In particular who was entitled to retain possession of what on the
assumption that the Rent Act applied. That could only be decided after hearing
the evidence. It was not a pure matter of law suitable to be determined as a
preliminary point. It follows that only when that has been decided can the
question of the validity of the notices be considered. That is sufficient to
decide this appeal.
However, I turn to consider one of the
alternative submissions of Mr Seal. He submitted that in this case the judge
was right to decide as he did as the applications before him did not enable him
to deal with all the possible situations. For there to be a valid originating
application there had to be a valid section 4 notice. That could not be
demonstrated in this case as at the very least there was a possibility that the
tenants continued to live in the whole house. I cannot accept that submission.
The judge had to decide whether the notices were valid. If they were not, then
the applications failed. It was not for him to send the applications away until
the notice was in a form which met every possible situation.
For the reasons given, I have come to the
conclusion that the judge was wrong to decide the validity of the notice as a
preliminary point. I believe that his approach to the law was wrong. I
therefore conclude that this appeal must be allowed and the case must be
remitted back so that the applications can proceed.
Agreeing, BUTLER-SLOSS LJ said:
This appeal has raised an interesting and not altogether easy question as to
the application of Part I of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 to joint tenants.
May I say that I am indebted to both counsel for their extremely helpful
arguments, both written and oral.
I have come to the conclusion that the
clear purpose of Part I of the Act is to provide protection for tenants of long
leases of residential property at low rents so as to give them similar
safeguards to those provided under the Rent Acts. That follows very closely
what Lord Denning said in the decision of Herbert v Byrne in the
passage to which Aldous LJ has already referred.
The concept of the continuation tenancy
under section 3 of Part I is to continue a tenancy which has expired with the
protection of the tenant until a notice has been served and where applicable a
statutory tenancy has arisen. It follows that the emphasis of Part I is upon the
premises qualifying for protection under section 3(3) which specifically refers
to the type of premises which would qualify under the Rent Acts. Rent Act
protection is an individual right personal to the tenant and it is the
identification of the element of the personal right which would be a crucial
consideration of the premises which may qualify for protection.
I agree therefore with Miss Padley that
the judge was in error in deciding the validity of the section 4 notices as a
preliminary issue. He ought to have heard the evidence and decided whether the
tenants occupied a whole house as a family or whether they occupied two
separate sets of premises under the same roof. Whether the landlord should have
given one or two section 4 notices will depend upon the facts as found by the
judge.
For those reasons, but in particular for
the reasons given by Aldous LJ in his judgment I also would allow this appeal.
The appeal is therefore allowed. The judge’s order is set aside and the case is
remitted to the county court for consideration by a county court circuit judge
as to whether these notices are in the event valid having regard to what the
facts are to be found by the judge as to whether there is one set of premises
or two.
Appeal allowed.
