Service of statutory notices: the ‘reasonable recipient test’ is an objective one

The High Court has upheld a decision that a notice to quit agricultural premises under the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 served on an individual shortly after the lease had been assigned to a company was valid in Turner and others v Thomas and another [2022] EWHC 1239 (Ch); [2022] PLSCS 84.   The claimants/respondents owned agricultural land in Gwynedd let to the first defendant on an oral tenancy protected by the 1986 Act. In November 2019, their predecessor served a notice to quit on the first defendant, unaware that, days before, he had assigned the tenancy to the second defendant/appellant, 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 himself. The respondents first learned of the assignment when agents for the first defendant wrote to their solicitors in October 2020 arguing that the notice was invalid because it had not been addressed to the company.   Section 93 of the 1986 Act governs service of notices but does not require that a notice must be addressed to the tenant in writing. Service on an agent is good service provided that the agent is authorised to receive such notice, but service on an assignor following an assignment is ineffective.   The judge decided that a reasonable recipient 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; [2020] EGLR 15 followed), applying the reasonable recipient test in Mannai Investment Co Ltd v Eagle Star Assurance Co Ltd [1997] AC 747; [1997] PLSCS 150 to statutory notices.   On appeal, the company argued that since the first defendant – the reasonable recipient – knew that the landlord was unaware of the assignment of the lease to the company, he could be sure that the landlord intended the notice to say precisely what it did, ie notifying him to quit the land. Had the landlord known of the assignment, the reasonable recipient would appreciate that it contained an error and that the landlord had intended the notice to be addressed to the company. The High Court disagreed.   Had the notice been addressed to “the tenant” and given to the first defendant or posted to his address – the registered office of the company – it would have been valid and effective. The Mannai test was whether, in the context in which the notice was given, the reasonable recipient would have understood it to have been addressed to the company as tenant under the lease. The context included that the notice correctly identified the lease and the land, the fact of the assignment and the landlord’s lack of knowledge of it.   Construction, even of a unilateral notice, is an objective process. The landlord’s actual knowledge was relevant as part of the context, which is why the notice was addressed to the first defendant. This was relevant to the conclusion that the reasonable recipient would reach – that the landlord intended to serve the actual tenant but mistakenly identified the first defendant as that person.   Louise Clark is a property law consultant and mediator