Horne & Meredith Properties v Cox & Anor
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
- LORD JUSTICE LEWISON
- LORD JUSTICE RYDER
- SIR STANLEY BURNTON
Areas of Law
- Property and Real Estate Law
2014
COURT OF APPEAL (CRIMINAL DIVISION)
United Kingdom
CORAM
AI Generated Summary
Mr Cox and Miss Billingsley, tenants of a retail property, faced lease renewal opposition from their landlord, which was upheld due to 16 years of litigation over property rights. The court viewed this history as a valid reason to deny a new lease under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, section 30(1)(c). The appeal court affirmed this decision, emphasizing that litigation history could be connected to the tenant's use or management of the property.
J U D G M E N T
LORD JUSTICE LEWISON: Mr Cox and Miss Billingsley are the tenants of 7A Whitburn Street, Bridgnorth in Shropshire. They occupy those premises for the purposes of their business, which is the retail sale of upmarket women's clothing. They first occupied the property under a lease granted in 1981 which has been subsequently renewed.
When the current lease came up for renewal under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 the landlord opposed the grant of a new lease on two grounds. The first was the redevelopment ground under section 30 (1) (f) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. His Honour Judge Main QC found that that ground had not been established.
The second ground was the ground specified in section 30 (1) (c) of the Act, namely that:
"the tenant ought not to be granted a new tenancy in view of other substantial breaches by him of his obligations under the tenancy or for any other reason connected with the use or management of the holding."
The judge held that this ground had been established; and by his order of 21 December 2012 ordered that the tenancy be terminated on 1 May 2013.
With the permission of Floyd LJ, Mr Cox and Miss Billingsley appeal. Their appeal is limited to one narrow ground, namely that the matters on which the judge relied in coming to his conclusion are not reasons connected with the use or management of the holding.
It is sensible to begin with the holding. This is a defined term in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The definition is in section 23 (3) of the Act. That reads:
"In the following provisions of this Part of this Act the expression 'the holding' in relation to a tenancy to which this Part of this Act applies means the property comprised in the tenancy, there being exclude any part thereof which is occupied neither by the tenant nor by a person employed by the tenant and so employed for the purposes of a business by reason of which the tenancy is one to which this Part of this Act applies."
Accordingly, in order to find out what the holding is one must first start with the property comprised in the tenancy. Having identified the property comprised in the tenancy, one must then subtract from it any property which is occupied neither by the tenant nor by an employee of his. The property comprised in the tenancy includes not only the corporeal hereditaments devised by the tenancy -- ie the parcels-- but also incorporeal hereditaments, such as rights of way; see Pointon York Group Ltd v Poulton [2006] E