Landlord and tenant Leasehold enfranchisement - construction of house - not improvement to be disregarded when determining amount payableRosen v Trustees of Camden Charities: CA (Otton, Ward LJJ, Evans-Lombe J): 30 November 2000In January 1850 the trustees auctioned the Kensington Workhouse, which they owned.

The successful bidder agreed to construct 29 houses on the site in return for a 99-year lease.

The lease, granted in 1852, was expressed to run from December 1849.

In 1937 the trustees granted a lease of house No.25 for 66 years.

The claimant was the successor in title to that lease and applied for enfranchisement.

The valuation tribunal determined, in accordance with s.9(1A) of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967, what should be the price payable by the tenant for a transfer to him of the freehold of No.25 by the trustees, and decided that the erection of house No.25 was not an improvement to be disregarded for the purposes of the determination.

The Lands Tribunal upheld the valuation.

The tenant appealed.Simon Berry QC and Edwin Johnson (instructed by David Conway & Co) for the claimant; Jonathan Gaunt QC (instructed by Lee Bolton & Lee) for the trustees.Held, dismissing the appeal, that it was clear from the definition of house and premises in s.2(3) that premises could not exist independently of a house and therefore the building of a new house on a bare site was not the improvement of the house and premises but the provision of a house; and that, even though the term of the 1852 lease commenced before the house was built, the original construction of No.25 was not an improvement carried out by the tenant or his predecessors in title at their own expense within the meaning of s.9(1A)(d).