West London National Health Service Trust v Keith Douglas Palmer

Hearing dates: 7 th – 9 th July 2026

Draft judgment circulated to parties: 12 th August 2026

APPROVED JUDGMENT

Introduction

This is a claim for possession of residential premises and for payment of outstanding rental and utilities charges.

The parties

The claimant is an NHS Trust. It owns and manages Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital. It is the freehold owner of a house at 29 Eastern Lane, Crowthorne, Broadmoor, Berkshire RG54 7EX (“the property”). The house is within the estate of Broadmoor Hospital.

The defendant is a retired nurse. He was granted a tenancy of the property on 29 ^th November 1988 by the claimant's predecessor in title: the Secretary of State for Social Services. Since 1976, the defendant had been employed as a staff nurse at Broadmoor. The defendant's full-time employment at the hospital ended in 2009. He continued to work part-time there until 2014. He remains in occupation of the property with his wife, daughter and grandchild.

The facts

The tenancy agreement provides, so far as is relevant, as follows:

“1. The Secretary of State lets on a service tenancy and the tenant takes as a service tenant all that (sic) the premises 29 Eastern Lane to hold the same from the first day of December 1988 for one month and so on from month to month until the tenancy is determined as hereinafter provided at the monthly rent of £ 87.46 payable on the last day of each month the first payment to be made on the thirty first day of December 1988.

PROVIDED ALWAYS AND IT IS HEREBY AGREED that the monthly rent payable by the tenant as from the first day of JUNE of the second and every subsequent year of the demise hereby granted shall be such sum as shall be assessed by the Secretary of State by his duly authorised agent the Hospital Administrator for the time being aforesaid and notified to the tenant in writing.

2. The Tenant covenants with the Secretary of State as follows:

(a)…

(b) To pay all existing and future rates or contributions in lieu of rates and taxes and other outgoings imposed or charged upon the premises or upon the owner or occupier in respect thereof.

…

(j) To defray all costs of heating and lighting the premises.

…

4. It is mutually agreed as follows:

(a) If any part of the rent shall remain unpaid for seven days after the same shall become payable the Secretary of State may at any time thereafter without previous notice resume possession of the premises hereby let thereby terminate the tenancy but without prejudice to any remedy he may have against the tenant under this agreement.

(b) Either party may terminate the tenancy at the end of the second month thereof or subsequently by giving to the other one month's notice in writing expiring on any one of the days fixed for the payment of rent…”

The defendant accepted in the course of being cross-examined, that he was only able to rent the property in the first place because he was an employee of Broadmoor Hospital. He also accepted that, at the time he entered into the agreement, he understood that the continuation of the tenancy depended, in part, on him remaining an employee of Broadmoor.

In 1989, the ownership of Broadmoor Hospital (and thus the property) was transferred from the Secretary of State to the Special Hospitals Service Authority (“the SHSA”). In 1996, the SHSA was abolished and the hospital was transferred to the Broadmoor Hospital Authority (“the BHA”). The BHA was dissolved on 31 ^st March 2001. The hospital was transferred to the Trust on 1 ^st April 2001. The claimant became the registered freehold owner of the Broadmoor Hospital estate on 26 ^th July 2003.

When the hospital was owned by the Secretary of State and by the SHSA, the estate included a large number of residential properties that were let to members of staff. In 1995 the SHSA was managing around 345 such properties, of which 245 were on the Broadmoor estate.

In around 1991, the SHSA offered certain tenants the opportunity to buy the properties they rented. The properties in Eastern Lane were not included in that scheme. On 1 ^st April 1996, the SHSA transferred most of its remaining housing stock to the Thames Valley Housing Association (“TVHA”). Again, the properties in Eastern Lane were not included.

The defendant's rent increased over time. From 1 ^st October 2005 it was £ 483.11 per month. On 1 ^st December 2007 it increased to £ 558.28 per month. It remained at that rate until 1 ^st September 2010, when it was increased to £ 750 per month as a result of a rent valuation report. The defendant took issue with this increase but he paid the new rent. The rent remained the same for the next ten years.

On 7 ^th April 2020, the claimant wrote to the defendant explaining that an independent review of the rent had been carried out by a district valuer. The claimant said that rather than increase the rent in one go, it would adopt a phased approach. The phased approach was to be that: the rent would increase to £ 875 per month from 1 ^st June 2020; it would increase to £ 1,000 per month from 1 ^st June 2021; and it would increase to £ 1,100 per month from 1 ^st June 2022.

On 30 ^th April 2020, the claimant wrote again acknowledging that there were problems relating to the cesspit in the back garden of the property. It said that there would be delays in resolving these due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It said that in the meantime, the defendant's rent would not increase above the £ 750 per month he was paying. On 18 ^th May 2021, the claimant wrote to the defendant saying that the issues relating to the cesspit and issues relating to bees had been resolved and that from 1 ^st June 2021, his rent would be £ 950 per month.

The defendant has continued paying £ 750 per month. He has never paid the increased rent.

The properties in Eastern Lane are not connected to the main sewerage drain or supplied directly with water, gas or electricity. They have septic tanks and obtain their water, gas and electricity through the hospital networks. It follows from this that the defendant is invoiced for utilities by the claimant. The defendant has not paid any of the utilities invoices issued by the claimant since April 2014. The defendant accepted when being cross-examined, that he remained liable to pay for the utilities he had used. He argued that his liability to pay was not enforceable because of a dispute about his septic tank that had not yet been resolved.

On 30 ^th January 2024, the claimant served the defendant with a Notice to Quit. It expired on 31 ^st March 2024.

The issues

The issues are as follows:

(a) Is the tenancy to be classified as a common-law tenancy or a tenancy to which the statutory protections in the Rent Act 1977 (“the 1977 Act”) apply. The resolution of this issue depends on the defendant's case that section 13 of the 1977 Act, which takes his tenancy outside those protections, discriminates against him under Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“the Convention”) in the exercise of his rights under Article 8 or Article 1 Protocol 1. The defendant argues that section 13 should be read as not applying to his case under section 3 (1) of the Human Rights Act 1998 (“the 1998 Act”), or alternatively, that he is entitled to a declaration of incompatibility under section 4 (2) of the 1998 Act. The Secretary of State has been notified of that application but has not intervened;

(b) If the tenancy does attract the protections in the 1977 Act, is it reasonable to make a possession order within the meaning of section 98 of the 1977 Act read with Cases 1 or 8 of Schedule 15 to that Act;

(c) Whether or not the tenancy was a 1977 Act tenancy, would it breach the defendant's rights under Article 8 of the Convention to make a possession order;

(d) Whether the defendant's rent was validly increased to £ 950 and therefore whether he is liable for unpaid rent since 1 ^st June 2021 (the defendant also counter-claims for re-imbursement on the basis that if the tenancy does attract the protections in the 1977 Act, his rent has never been validly increased from the amount set out on the face of the tenancy agreement); and

(e) Whether the defendant has any defence to the claim for immediate payment of the outstanding utilities charges.

Issue (a) is the defendant entitled to the protections in the 1977 Act

(i) The relevant statutory provisions

Section 13 (1)(a) of the 1977 Act provides:

“(a) a tenancy shall not be a protected tenancy at any time when the interest of the landlord under the tenancy belongs to Her Majesty in right of the Crown or to a government department or is held in trust for Her Majesty for the purposes of a government department…”

The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 (“the 1990 Act”) created the power to establish National Health Service Trusts and to transfer health service functions to such a trust. One of the effects of the transfer of a health service function to an NHS Trust was its transfer from the Crown to a body corporate. By section 60 (1) of the 1990 Act various Crown immunities, including those related to the holding of land, were removed. However, section 60 (1) was subject to a number of exceptions and transitional provisions. Section 60 (2) of the 1990 Act provides:

“(2) In Schedule 8 to this Act—

(a) Part I has effect to continue certain exemptions for health service bodies and property held, used or occupied by such bodies;

(b) The amendments in Part II have...