Service of statutory notice: reasonable recipient test cures service on assignor

The court has considered as a preliminary issue whether a notice under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 served on an individual rather than the company to which the tenancy had been assigned was valid in Brenda Elizabeth Turner and others v Owen Gwilym Thomas and another [2021] EW Misc 20 (CC). The claimants were registered proprietors of 20 acres of agricultural land in Gwynedd let to the first defendant on an oral tenancy protected by the 1986 Act. On 4 November 2019, the claimants’ predecessor served a notice to quit on the first defendant, not knowing that days before, on 1 November 2019, the first defendant had assigned the tenancy to the second defendant, a company of which he was the sole director and shareholder. The first defendant continued to farm the land but on behalf of the company instead of on his own behalf. He did not serve a counter-notice requiring the claimants to apply to the Agricultural Land Tribunal for Wales (the First-tier Tribunal in England) for consent to its operation. The claimants first learned of the assignment when agents on behalf of the first defendant wrote to the claimants’ solicitors in October 2020 arguing that the notice was invalid because it had not been addressed to the company. Was the notice valid? S93 of the 1986 Act addresses the manner of service but not a requirement that such a notice must be addressed to the tenant in writing and so the position is governed by common law. Service on an agent is accepted to be good service provided that the agent is authorised to receive such notice. However, service on a former tenant following an assignment, even where the landlord has no notice of the assignment, is not considered good service. The claimants argued that the notice was given to the company by being delivered to the first defendant, who was responsible for the discharge of the company’s administrative functions and to be treated as fulfilling the role of company secretary, and/or it was delivered to the first defendant as agent of the company, responsible for the control of the management and farming of the land. The second defendant argued that the notice had to be given or served on the correct party, which was the company. The notice was not addressed to and given to the company. Had it been addressed to the company then it was accepted that delivery to the first defendant, either in his capacity as company secretary or agent for the company, would have been good service. The court took the view that a reasonable recipient of the notice would appreciate that the notice contained an error in that it was addressed to the individual and not the company and would appreciate its meaning – Pease v Carter [2020] EWCA Civ 175 – applying the reasonable recipient test in Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star Assurance Co Ltd [1997] AC 747 to statutory notices. A reasonable recipient could be in no doubt of the identity of the intended recipient. The notice was valid and effective. Louise Clark is a property law consultant and mediator