Tenancies and Estoppel ‐ After Bruton v London& Quadrant Housing Trust
| Published date | 01 May 2000 |
| Author | Patrick Routley |
| Date | 01 May 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.00272 |
Tenancies and Estoppel – After Bruton vLondon &
Quadrant Housing Trust
Patrick Routley*
‘.. . [I]t is not the estoppel which creates the tenancy, but the tenancy which
creates the estoppel’. With these words
1
in Bruton vLondon & Quadrant
Housing Trust, Lord Hoffmann has challenged head-on the well-established
and widely understood doctrine of the tenancy by estoppel, prompting a re-
examination both of the concept of that form of estoppel and of the nature of
the lease itself.
The traditional doctrine of estoppel
As generally understood, a tenancy2by estoppel results where a person purports to
grant a tenancy of land, but does not in fact have a sufficient interest in the land to
create a tenancy: he is then estopped from denying that the relationship of landlord
and tenant exists between him and the grantee. Thus where a tenant at will3or a
tenant on sufferance4purported to grant a tenancy, and the tenant went into
occupation, a tenancy by estoppel is created; likewise where a person who had
contracted to purchase a freehold purported to grant a lease before completion.5As
between the parties it is as though they are actually landlord and tenant even
though they are in fact not.
The authorities6describe a tenancy by estoppel as a different creature from the
more familiar estoppel by representation, as a development from the doctrine of
estoppel by deed,7but extended in the field of landlord and tenant to all grants
whether merely written or oral.8A tenancy by estoppel could be said to be the
result of the operation of estoppel by grant. Unlike its cousin, estoppel by grant
does not rely upon any express representation as to title: ‘It is the product of a
fundamental principle of the common law which precludes a grantor from
disputing the validity of his own grant.’9
ßThe Modern Law Review Limited 2000 (MLR 63:3, May). Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
424
* Barrister.
1 [1999] 3 WLR 150, 157.
2 Of course the terms ‘lease’ and ‘tenancy’ are interchangeable, helpful though it might be to assign to
them different meanings.
3Blunden vBough (1632) Cro Car 302, Doe d. Goody vCarter (1847) 9 QB 863, 865.
4Thunder d. Weaver vBelcher (1803) 3 East 449.
5Universal Permanent Building Society vCooke [1952] Ch 95. When the purchaser completed the
purchase of the freehold the tenancy by estoppel was ‘fed’, and the lease, now ‘in interest’, and dating
back to the time of the purported grant, had priority over the mortgage executed at the time of
completion.
6egFirst National Bank vThompson [1996] 1 All ER 140.
7 ‘No man shall be allowed to dispute his own solemn deed,’ per Lord Mansfield CJ in Goodtitle d.
Edwards vBailey (1777) Cowp. 597.
8Lewis vMorelli [1948] 2 All ER 1021.
9per Millett LJ in Bruton in the Court of Appeal, [1998] QB 834, 844.
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