Protected tenancy — Tenant occupying bed-sitting-room on weekly tenancy — Landlord providing services to common parts as well as to individual rooms — Services including supply of clean linen — Landlord serving notice to quit — Tenant contending for protected tenancy — Whether supply of clean linen constituting “attendance” — Whether payments for “attendance” constituting substantial part of the whole rent — Whether arithmetical calculation appropriate — Notice to quit upheld at first instance and on appeal
The respondent landlord, Nelson Developments Ltd, owned two properties at 31 and 36 Beaufort Gardens, London SW3. Each property comprised a number of bed-sitting-rooms and the appellant, Mr Taboada, had occupied room 4 at 36 Beaufort Gardens since September 1986. The room was let on a weekly tenancy and the landlords provided cleaning, refuse removal on a daily basis and clean bed-linen weekly, together with other services to the common parts. The rent officer had assessed the services at £12.97 in 1989, when he determined a fair registered rent of £45 per week on appeal. The landlord served a notice to quit in July 1990 on the basis of section 7(1) of the Rent Act 1977. The subsection provided that there was not a protected tenancy if the premises were “let at a rent which includes payments in respect of … attendance”. Subsection (2) provided that the payments in respect of attendance must form “a substantial part of the whole rent”. The tenant claimed a protected tenancy under the Rent Acts. In the proceedings for possession, the judge found that provision of linen, among other matters, was an “attendance” and that, on the facts of the present case, the value formed a substantial part of the whole rent. Inter alia, the judge stated that the value of the attendance had to be considered on a common-sense basis and he also proceeded to assess the proportion for attendance in percentage terms of the whole rent. The tenant appealed.
Held The appeal was dismissed.
