Cases - Mountain v Hastings
Record details
- Name
- Mountain v Hastings
- Date
- [1993]
- Citation
- 2 EGLR 53
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Notice to quit
- Summary
-
The tenant disputed the effect of a notice to quit.
Paragraph 3 of the form read:
‘The landlord intends to seek possession on grounds ... in Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988, which reads: “Give the full text of each ground which is being relied on. (Continue on a separate sheet if necessary)." By regulation 2 of the 1988 Regulations: "any reference to a numbered form is a reference to the form bearing that number in the Schedule to these regulations or to a form substantially to the same effect”.’
Held
A notice to quit given in respect of an assured tenancy need not follow the apparent requirements of the Act precisely. Ralph Gibson LJ said:
‘The regulation, however, expressly permits the notice to be effective in the prescribed form if it is “substantially to the same effect”, which I take to mean to be showing no difference in substance having regard to the legislative purpose of the provisions as a whole. I, therefore, am not persuaded that there is a statutory requirement that the ground be set out verbatim from the schedule. I am troubled by the risk that if the tenant is faced with the seven words which effectively set out the substance of a ground but in markedly different words, the tenant may, if he has access to the words in schedule 2, be puzzled and troubled by the difference. There is something to be said in favour in the use of the words in which the ground was enacted by Parliament. I do not decide this point, however, because the case can be, and I think should be, decided on the ground that the plaintiff's notice was not “substantially to the same effect” as that required by the Act and regulations.’
As to the extended powers given to courts under section 9, the court had the ‘impression’ that it:
‘is not dealing with the ordinary power of adjournment which the court has to control and direct the conduct of a trial: it is directed to an extended discretion as there described.’
The tenant should know from the notice what he or she should do ‘which will best protect her against the loss of her home.’