Forfeiture

Citation

(1998), "Forfeiture", Property Management, Vol. 16 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.1998.11316aab.020

Forfeiture

Forfeiture

Maryland Estate Ltd v. Joseph [1997] 46 EG 155

In this case the court was concerned with the question of whether the words used in s. 138 of the County Courts Act 1984 required the tenants to pay arrears of rent up to the date of the service of the summons, or up until the date of judgment, as a necessary prerequisite to the cessation of an action brought by the landlord for forfeiture of the lease.

After considering the origin of the present statutory provisions, originally in Equity and later under a series of different statutory provisions beginning with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1730, Judge Diamond QC, came to the conclusion that all that was required to satisfy the provisions of s. 138 of the 1984 Act was that the defendant lessees should pay arrears which had fallen due up to the date of service of proceedings, together with the landlord's costs. If further arrears should fall due between that date and the date of judgment, he said, then it would be open to the landlord to commence new proceedings for forfeiture based on the new arrears of rent.

In Razaq v. Pala [1997] 38 EG 157, the Court had to decide two questions, on both of which turned the answer to the question of whether or not the landlord might need to obtain the consent of the court before exercising his right to forfeit the lease by taking peaceable possession of the premises: first, was the right of re-entry a "security"; second, was it a "remedy"? Neither, said the court, although sometimes both terms were so used in a rather general sense. Accordingly, the fact that bankruptcy proceedings had been commenced against the tenant at the date of re-entry did not mean that the landlord had first to obtain the consent of the court before exercising his right to forfeit the lease in this case.