The Court of Appeal has handed down a landmark decision in O G Thomas Amaethyddiath v Turner & Ors [2022] EWCA Civ 1446, a case concerning the validity of a landlord’s notice to terminate the tenancy.

Case facts

Mr Thomas was granted an oral tenancy of an agricultural holding and it contained no restrictions on assignment.

Mr Thomas assigned the tenancy to a company without notifying his landlord. Mr Thomas was the sole shareholder, director and secretary of the company. The company’s registered office was the same as Mr Thomas’ home address.

The landlord, who was unaware of the assignment, served a notice to quit. The notice was addressed to Mr Thomas instead of the company, and was posted to Mr Thomas’ home address, which was also the company’s registered office.

Key issue

The key issue of the case was whether the landlord’s notice to quit was valid, despite being addressed to Mr Thomas instead of the company.

Court of Appeal’s decision

The Court of Appeal overturned the lower Courts’ decision and held that the notice to quit was invalid.

At first instance and on first appeal, the Courts applied the test set out in Mannai Investment Co v Eagle Star Life Assurance [1997] AC 749 and held that the notice to quit was valid. The Courts held that a reasonable recipient would have understood that the landlord had made a mistake in naming the tenant and would have known that the notice was addressed to the company.

However, the Court of Appeal disagreed with the decision and held that the notice could not be saved by the principles set out in Mannai as it was addressed to the incorrect recipient. The Court explained that “since the reasonable recipient in the shoes of Mr Thomas knew that the landlord was unaware of the assignment, he would not have understood the notice as referring to the company”.

The Court of Appeal therefore held that the notice to quit was invalid.

Comments

Thomas v Turner demonstrates the Court’s reluctance in rescuing a party from an erroneous notice, no matter how insignificant one thinks the errors are. It is a reminder for all landlords, tenants and legal practitioners to perform proper due diligence prior to serving notices and not to rely on the Court to rescue them. It is worth mentioning that the Court in this case appears to suggest that if a landlord has doubts about the identity of their tenant, it may be a better approach to simply describe the tenant as “the tenant” in the notice or simply not name the tenant at all. Legal practitioners will need to exercise extra caution when drafting and serving notices to ensure their validity, especially when the leases contain no restrictions on assignment.

The Judgment can be viewed here.