The tenant of a farm in Hutton, Lancashire, has asked the Court of Appeal to overturn a county court ruling that he was in breach of the terms of his tenancy.
Joseph Taylor is challenging a decision by Judge Gee, sitting in Preston County Court in September 1999, upholding the ruling of an arbitrator that his landlords, Lancashire County Council, were entitled to serve him with a notice to quit on the ground that his business went beyond what was permitted by the lease.
Taylor had farmed Pollards Farm, Holding 65, Hutton and Howick Estate, Hutton, as a tenant of the council since 1962, and had, over a long period, expanded his business. Originally he used the farm for processing and pasteurising milk and operating a milk round, but in later years the major part of his business became the importation of milk and fruit juices and the retailing of products not produced on the holding.
The council took the view that the expanded operations breached the lease, and served a number of notices, from 1990 onwards, requiring Taylor to remedy the situation. He did not comply, and in January 1995 the council served him with the first of three notices to quit. The first and second notices were invalid for technical reasons, and so the third was served in January 1996.
Taylor sought to challenge the validity of the notice, but an arbitrator and then the county court rejected that claim, despite the arbitrator’s finding that the council’s conduct over the years amounted to a representation that they would not insist upon the strict operation of the notices to remedy.
On appeal, Derek Wood QC, counsel for Taylor, argued that he had acted in accordance with that representation and that, given the arbitrator’s finding on the matter, the judge should not have upheld the notice to quit.
The hearing continues.
Taylor v Lancashire County Council Court of Appeal (Waller and Dyson LJJ and Sir Murray Stuart-Smith) 25 January 2001
Derek Wood QC and Joanne Moss (instructed by Napthen Houghton Craven, of Preston) appeared for the appellant; Paul Morgan QC (instructed by the solicitor to Lancashire County Council) appeared for the respondents.
PLS News 26/1/01
