LANDLORD AND TENANT



Extension of leases - flats - leaseholds - premises - redevelopment

Majorstake Ltd v Monty Curtis: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justice May, Neuberger, Moore-Bick): 8 August 2006



The freeholder (M) appealed against the decision that the respondent tenant (C) was entitled to a new lease of his flat.



C held a long lease, expiring in 2008, of a flat in a block owned by M. C had given notice to M under section 42 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, claiming the right to acquire a new lease. M gave a counter-notice under section 45 of its intention to redevelop the premises in which the flat was contained by combining that flat with the one beneath it.



The judge held that M's intention to redevelop did not defeat C's claim because the part of the block which contained the two flats was not 'any premises in which the tenant's flat is contained' within section 47(2)(b)(ii), since that expression referred to the building as a whole or a self-contained part of it. The landlord submitted that the expression 'any premises' was general and was apt to refer to the whole or any part of a building.



Held, Lord Justice May dissenting, the expression 'premises in which the flat is contained' did not refer only to the building or self-contained part of the building. There was not in the policy or language of the Act any indication that a part of the building that comprised two adjacent flats did not constitute premises in which each was contained, whether the two flats were vertically or

horizontally contiguous.



Appeal allowed.



Jonathan Brock QC, Emily Windsor (instructed by SJ Berwin) for the appellant; Edward Denehan (instructed by Freeman Box) for the respondent.