Termination of secure tenancy

Citation

Waterson, G. and Lee, R. (1999), "Termination of secure tenancy", Property Management, Vol. 17 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.1999.11317cab.011

Termination of secure tenancy

Sanctuary Housing Association v. Campbell [1999] The Times 21 April 1999

In this case the Court of Appeal had to consider the relationship between the provisions relating to a secure tenancy under the Housing Act 1985 and the provisions relating to the rights of the spouse of the tenant under the Matrimonial Homes Act 1983 (now contained in the Family Law Act 1996).

Put briefly: the wife was the tenant of a maisonette which she occupied together with her three children and the defendant, whom she had married in 1995. In 1996 the wife left the maisonette, allegedly as the result of violence on the part of her husband. In 1997 the wife was rehoused and wished to give up the tenancy of the maisonette so that she would no longer be liable for payment of rent. Accordingly, she wrote to the landlord saying that she wished to give up the tenancy and returning the keys (a gesture which was largely symbolic as in fact the locks had been changed and the wife was therefore no longer able to obtain access to the maisonette even if she had wished to do so).

The question then arose as to whether the wife had by her action effectively been able to terminate the tenancy without the consent of her husband. There was some authority, dating back to 1950, suggesting that in the case of a Rent Act protected tenancy this would not have been possible since it would have deprived the spouse of the rights enjoyed by the spouse under the Rent Acts. There was also the matter of the protection given to the spouse under the Act of 1983 (now the 1996 Act) relating to the spouse's right of occupation of the matrimonial home.

As regards the existing authorities the court held that these were of little significance: in one of them the position had been reached by way of concession rather than as a result of legal argument, and dicta in the earlier cases had been superseded, at least in the case of contractual secure tenancies, by the Act of 1983. In this case the husband had made no effort to register his rights of occupation under that Act as a land charge, and he had not commenced matrimonial proceedings (under which the court might have decided e.g. to transfer the tenancy to him by way of matrimonial relief) until after the pleadings had closed in the possession action. It would be manifestly absurd, said Thorpe, LJ to suggest that the wife's actions had not been effective to terminate her tenancy and that the husband's rights of occupation might somehow survive such a surrender. The situation might be otherwise if the surrender had been voluntary, without contractual consideration given by the landlord, but the landlord had made it plain that the tenant would only be released from the tenancy if she did her best to enable them to obtain possession of the premises. This she had done, so the landlord was duty bound to release her, and this was the consideration upon which the agreement for surrender was based.