LANDLORD AND TENANTLeasehold enfranchisement - tenant serving notice to acquire new lease - landlord's counter-notice neither admitting nor disputing tenant's right to acquire new lease invalidBurman v Mount Cook Land Ltd: CA (Lord Justice Chadwick and Sir Murray Stuart Smith): 20 November 2001The tenant held the flat which was her principal home under a long lease at a low rent.

She served a notice on the landlord under section 42 of the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 to exercise her right to acquire a new lease of the flat.

The landlord's agents served a counter notice under section 45(2) of the Act proposing a higher rent, but failed to state in it whether the landlord admitted the tenant's right under the Act or the terms stated in the tenant's notice.

The tenant applied to the county court for a new lease on terms proposed in her notice, contending that the counter-notice was not valid.

The judge dismissed the application, holding that no reasonable tenant would be misled by the counter-notice into thinking that the landlord was disputing the tenant's right to acquire a new lease.

The tenant appealed.Edwin Prince (instructed by Wallace & Partners) for the tenant.

Anthony Radevsky (instructed by Speechly Bircham) for the landlord.Held, allowing the appeal, that the statutory scheme of the 1993 Act was that the tenant serving a notice to acquire a new lease ought to know by the date specified in his notice whether the landlord had admitted the tenant's right; that on a true construction the counter-notice as served by the landlord did not inform the tenant whether the landlord admitted either the right or the terms of the lease; and that, accordingly, it could not be read as a valid counter-notice.