Tenancy Trap


I entirely share Tessa Shepperson's concern that there is room for disagreement about the date that needs to be inserted in a notice under section 21(4) of the Housing Act (see [2007] Gazette, 1 February, 17).



I may well be wrong, but it seems to me that the interpretation that I advanced in my article follows from the reasoning of the Court of Appeal in the Meya case, to which I briefly referred. The tenancy in Meya started in the middle of a quarter but the appeal court said that the last payment of rent under it 'was payable in advance for the September quarter'. I suppose that the only completely safe approach is to use the Lower Street v Jones wording, which, of course, the tenant will not understand. The words 'being the last day of a period of the tenancy' have always seemed to me to be a trap serving no useful purpose whatever, and it is a great pity that they were not deleted when Parliament amended the 1988 Act.



District Judge Neil Hickman, Milton Keynes County Court