Hobhouse v Wall
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE ORMEROD,LORD JUSTICE UPJOHN,LORD JUSTICE DAVIES |
| Judgment Date | 30 January 1963 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1963] EWCA Civ J0130-2 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 30 January 1963 |
[1963] EWCA Civ J0130-2
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Lord Justice Ormerod,
Lord Justice Upjohn and
Lord Justice Davies
MR H.S. RUSSELL, (instructed by Messrs. Reed & Reed, Agents for Messrs. Earle & Gardner of Axbridge) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Defendant).
MR G. MACDONALD, (instructed by Messrs. Burrough, Horner &. Pigot of Wedmore, Somerset) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Plaintiffs).
I will ask lord Justice Upjohn to deliver the first Judgment.
This is an appeal from a judgment of His Honour Judge Hillard given on the 2nd October, 1962, and it raises a short but far from easy point of some general importance on the true construction of Section 41 of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1964. The facts, so far as they are relevant, are not in dispute, and I can state them quite shortly. The Plaintiffs, who are the Trustees and Visitors of Hugh Sexeys Hospital, Bruton, Somerset, are the owners, amongst other properties, of a farm known as Holly Tree Farm, with something like 90 acres surrounding it. Upon that farm there is a farmhouse, the Holly Tree Farm itself; and there is also on the farm a small cottage known as Ivy Cottage.
The Plaintiff Trustees let this farm, and until 1961 it was let to a gentleman of the name of Cockayne, with some 74 acres, under an agreement of the 16th December, 1957. Ivy Cottage was sublet at all material times to the Defendant, who is the Appellant before us, Mr. Wall. I think he had been in possession from 1944; but that is not really material. He was admittedly a sub-tenant of Mr. Cockayne's. On the 10th February, 1969 Mr. Cockayne gave a notice to quit to Mr. Wall which brought that contractual tenancy to an end. There was much dispute, apparently, before the learned County Court Judge as to whether that notice was valid; but that is not in issue before us. However, it is conceded that Ivy Cottage is subject to the Rent Restriction Acts and, therefore, although the notice brought the contractual tenancy to an end, the Defendant remained in possession as a protected tenant on the terms of a statutory tenancy, as it is usually called.
On the 31st October, 1961 Mr. Cockayne surrendered his tenancy to the Plaintiff Trustees, and then in December granteda tenancy of Holly Tree Farm (with rather more land: 87 acres instead of 74) to the last Plaintiff, Mr. Nole. Mr. Hole became a tenant from year to year and he entered into possession in December, 1961. Throughout Mr. Wall remained in possession as a protected tenant, but it was contended that as a result of the surrender of the tenancy by Mr. Cockayne in October, 1961 he ceased to be a protected tenant and became a trespasser. The Plaintiffs, including Mr. Hole, were very careful thereafter never to recognise the Defendant as a tenant, but treated him throughout as a trespasser.
The whole question is whether he is a trespasser or still entitled to the protection of the Rent Restriction Acts. It is not disputed that had the Plaintiffs and Mr. Hole treated the Defendant as a tenant after the surrender they would be in a difficulty, because he would be entitled to the protection of the Rent Restriction Acts; but it is conceded before us that they have never done so.
Apart altogether from Section 41 of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, the position seems to me to be quite plain. Upon the surrender of the whole of Holly Tree Farm, that farm not being subject to the Rent Restriction Acts (that is conceded the Defendant ceased to have the benefit of the Rent Restriction Acts against the head landlord, the Plaintiff Trustees. That is, I think, clear from the case of ( Cow -v- Casey 1949 1 K.B. p. 474), the true position being, as was pointed out in this court in the later case of ( Legge -v- Matthews 1960 1 A.E.R. p. 596), that there was no section which extended the protection of the Rent Restriction Acts where the main or superior premises were not subject to the Rent Restriction Acts and so the common law applied. Where, therefore, the landlord of premises determined a tenancy by surrender, or where it expired, if part of those premises were subject to the Rent Restriction Acts the sub-tenant of that part could not plead the Rent RestrictionActs against the head landlord, although, of course, he had had that protection against his own immediate landlord. That, I think, is the effect of those decisions.
But, admittedly, Section 41 of the Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954 altered the law to some extent and portly reversed the decision in Cow -v- Casey The whole...
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Maunsell v Olins
...Court on the ground that the cottage formed physically part of the farm buildings, a circumstance supposed to distinguish the case from Hobhouse v. Wall [963] 2 Q.B. 124 (C.A.). On appeal to the Court of Appeal, this distinction was rejected and the Court followed its earlier decision. The ......
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Maunsell v Olins
...Act was a consolidating Act. 8 That is a point of some importance, because the main authority that has to be considered in this case, Hobhouse -v- Wall (1963 2 Q.B. p. 124), was a case which was decided under Section 41 of the Act of 1954. In that case, as appears from the headnote, "The pl......
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London Regional Transport v Nicholas Brandt
...difficulty confronting the second argument in Cow v Casey. That was the section which fell for consideration by the Court of Appeal in Hobhouse v Wall [1963] 2 QB 124, another surrender case and different to Cow v Casey only in that the head tenant there brought the contractual sub-tenancy ......
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Bromley Park Garden Estates Ltd v David Charles George
...in Critchley v. Clifford [1962] 1 QB 131 at page 143 Lord Justice Willmer also referred to the decision without disapproval and in Hobhouse v. Wall [1963] 2 QB 124 Lord Justice Upjohn, as he then was, at page 130 said: "Where, therefore, the landlord of premises determined a tenancy by surr......