Citation
(1999), "Business tenancies", Property Management, Vol. 17 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.1999.11317dab.004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
Business tenancies
Cricket Ltd v. Shaftsbury plc [1999] 28 EG 127
Readers will be aware that, under the terms of s.43 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, certain short term business lettings are excluded from the right to security of tenure which is normally provided for business tenants by the provisions of the Act, including tenancies where the tenancy was originally granted for a term certain not exceeding six months unless inter-alia under s.43(3)(b) "the tenant has been in occupation for a period which ... exceeds 12 months."
In the present case the plaintiff occupied one floor in the defendant's building, initially under an agreement which provided for a period of occupation which lasted from 26 November 1997 to 30 April 1998. On 28 April the parties entered into a further similar agreement which provided for a conceded period of occupation lasting from 1 May 1998 to 30 September 1998. The agreement used terminology indicative of occupational licence agreement but counsel for the defendant concluded for the purposes of the proceedings in hand that in the light of the decision in Street v. Mountford it was at least arguable that they gave rise to a tenancy. It was also agreed that when the plaintiff remained in occupation after the expiration of the second agreement it was as a tenant-at-will. Tenants-at-will, as such, are not protected by the 1954 Act. The question before the court was whether the word "occupation" in s.43(3)(b) was apt to include the situation where part of that period of "occupation" was otherwise than as a tenant for a term certain.
The court held that it was not, and that in consequence the plaintiff was not protected by the 1954 Act. In the words of Neugerger, J:
In my judgement, if a tenancy is not within the 1954 Act when it expires because of s.43(3), then ... it cannot be right that a period of occupation in [the capacity of a tenant-at-will] could retrospectively resurrect a tenancy that had expired by effluxion of time and bring it within the 1954 Act ...