Section 48 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 is a provision which has been familiar to property lawyers for some time.

After the decisions in Dallhold Estates (UK) Pty Ltd v Lindsey Trading Properties Inc [1992] 1 EGLR 88 and [1994] 17 EG 148, the section appeared to have become a pitfall for many a landlord, and a windfall for many a tenant.However, in a recent and important twist, the Court of Appeal has reconsidered Dallhold, confining it so that many landlords will breathe a huge sigh of relief, and in a way that many will see as a return to common sense.S.48 provides: '(1) A landlord of premises to which this part applies shall by notice furnish the tenant with an address in England and Wales at which notices (including notices in proceedings) may be served on him by the tenant.

(2) Where a landlord of any such premises fails to comply with subs (1), any rent or service charge otherwise due from the tenant to the landlord shall...be treated for all purposes as not being due from the tenant to the landlord at any time before the landlord does comply with that subsection.'S.48 applies to premises which consist of or include a dwelling and are not held under a tenancy to which pt II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 applies.After Dallhold, two points on s.48 appeared to be settled.

First, the notice had to be in writing.

S.54(1) provides: 'Any notice required or authorised to be served under this Act...shall be in writing...' Oral communications therefore were not to be taken into account.Secondly, although there was no prescribed form, the notice had to state that the address given was the address at which notices might be served on the landlord; and it was not sufficient, without more, to state an address at which service could in fact be effected.The factual situation in Dallhold was that neither of the parties to the proceedings was an original party to the lease.

The tenant was an Australian company, and the landlord a Panamanian company.

The lease provided for the payment of rent to be made to a firm of solicitors in London, or other notified agent.Those solicitors, acting for the landlord, communicated with the tenant and the tenant's solicitors, sending notice to pay the rent, notice to quit, a statutory demand, and other correspondence, which included the solicitors' address.

None of the documents relied on, prior to service of an express s.48 notice giving the solicitors' address, was held to be sufficient.Other reported decisions on s.48 are few and far between, and Dallhold stood unchallenged until very recently.

However, on 29 July 1994, the Court of Appeal was called upon to decide the plaintiff tenant's appeal in Rogan v Woodfield Building Services Ltd [1994] EGCS 145.

This case, yet to be fully reported, will now be seen as the leading authority on the point, and in all probability the last word.The facts in Rogan were these.

The tenant (together with a co-occupier) sued the landlord for overpayments of rent under s.57 of the Rent Act 1977, and was withholding current rent.

The landlord admitted the claim in part, and tendered the amount admitted.

The tenant, though, continued to withhold rent.

The landlord consequently then counterclaimed for rent arrears and possession.The defence to counterclaim made no reference whatever to s.48.

Although only a general denial of liability was ever pleaded, from correspondence it emerged that the tenant's defence was an alleged failure to serve notices of increase of rent under s.45(2) of the Rent Act, but which the landlord maintained were not necessary.

The tenant's particulars of claim in fact appeared to admit that rent was due, because they pleaded that credit would be given against the claim for repayment in respect of rent 'due' over the periods of deduction by the tenant.At trial, the tenant's counsel announced for the first time that he was relying on s.48 and Dallhold to contend that no rent was due at all.

The judge dismissed the objection for the landlord that the matter had not been pleaded, and allowed the point to be raised without any amendment to the pleadings.In evidence, the landlord admitted that no express s.48 notice had ever been given.

However, reliance was placed on the fact that the landlord's address appeared in the written tenancy agreement, and also in letters from the landlord to the tenant.

The landlord was a small property company which throughout had operated from only one address.The address in the tenancy agreement, and on the letters, was in fact the landlord's registered office (though none of the documents said so).

For their part, both plaintiffs admitted that they had never entertained any doubt as to where they could communicate with the landlord, and had done so without difficulty over several years by writing to the address in the tenancy agreement.The county court judge found for the landlord, both on the notices of increase point, and on the s.48 point.

The tenant appealed on the s.48 point alone, contending that the judge was wrong to have distinguished Dallhold, and that s.48 required the landlord to furnish an address which was expressly stated to be an address for service of notices.

The tenant also contended that Dallhold was incorrectly decided in so far as it construed s.48(2) as merely suspending, rather than destroying, the right to recover rent in respect of any period before compliance.The landlord also contended that Dallhold was wrongly decided, by requiring an s.48 notice to be in writing.

The need for writing, based upon the applicability of s.54(1), seems to have been assumed in Dallhold.

However, s.54(1) relates specifically to notices which are to be 'served', while s.48 (in distinction to many other sections in the Act) does not expressly require service, simply the 'furnishing' of an address 'by notice'.

Hence, it was argued, such notice could be given orally, as with a notice to quit at common law.Furthermore, it was argued that Dallhold represented an unjustifiably narrow interpretation of s.48, and if correct should be confined to its facts.

Finally, the judge had been wrong to allow the tenant to take the s.48 point on the unamended pleadings and, because the landlord had in fact served an express s.48 notice in writing after the conclusion of the evidence in the trial, the court should in any event exercise its discretion and treat the counterclaim as if amended and re-issued after the service of the express s.48 notice.The Court of Appeal (a court of three, ordered specially) unanimously dismissed the tenant's appeal.

Sir Ralph Gibson, who (as Ralph Gibson LJ) had decided Dallhold, again gave the leading judgment, and expressed the regret that the decision in Dallhold had not been given with greater clarity.On the issue as to the need for the notice to be in writing, he ruled that it was not open to the court to question the decision in Dallhold, even though the point had not been argued there.

However, on the other issues, he robustly declared that the appeal was without merit or purpose.On the main point, he held that the address of the landlord in the tenancy agreement satisfied s.48, there being nothing to suggest that it was not the address at which notices might be served.

The tenant had so understood the address, and a reasonable person in the position of the tenant would so understand it.

He commented that Parliament had not intended by s.48 to require a landlord who had already provided his address in a rent book (as required under ss.4 and 5 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985) to do so again.

The tenant's argument that s.48(2) destroyed rather than suspended the right to recover rent was swiftly rejected.Furthermore, Sir Ralph Gibson accepted the landlord's argument that if s.48 had required the court to set the judgment aside, justice required that the landlord be permitted to amend and that the counterclaim be treated as if it had been re-issued, on the grounds that the tenant had been properly notified by the later service of the express s.48 notice.

This approach may be important in other cases where proceedings have been commenced before compliance with s.48 has been achieved.Stuart-Smith LJ found the landlord's argument as to the absence of any requirement for writing to be 'attractive'.

However, he decided ultimately that writing was required.

He held, though, that Dallhold, in purporting to decide that the notice must state expressly that the address given is an address for service, went further than it needed to on the facts of the case, and was obiter.

Dallhold was to be confined to its facts, because the solicitors' address had (until later compliance) only been given as an address for payment of the rent, and was not to be regarded as an address for any other purpose.Russell LJ, in a short judgment, also held that the notice must be in writing.

However, the notice did not have to contain any indication that it was an address for service of notices; the sufficiency of the notice depended upon all the circumstances of the case.It is therefore settled that the landlord's address does need to be in writing in order to satisfy s.48.

However, if the address (in England and Wales) is contained in a written tenancy agreement, this can be sufficient, even if the agreement does not expressly state that the address is an address for the service of notices.Other documents containing the landlord's address could also suffice, but a more restrictive attitude will be taken to these, and it may well be held that such documents furnish the address only for the purpose of that particular document unless the contrary appears.Although not referred to in the judgments, during argument Russell LJ asked both counsel why it would not be sufficient for a landlord to hand over a business card with an address on it and say to the tenant 'this is my address, you can reach me here'.

While the reasoning in Dallhold ruled out the possibility that this could suffice, it now seems that it may be enough.It is understood that the tenant is considering an appeal to the House of Lords; but no leave to appeal has yet been obtained, and the chances of the Court of Appeal being overturned look remote.