In landlord and tenant law, whether a notice has been validly served is often a technical issue but can have serious financial consequences.

In a recent case the Court looked at whether a break notice had been effectively served. The outcome of which would determine whether the tenant, the NHS, needed to pay over £600,000 in rent for premises it no longer needed.  

The lease provided:

“For the purpose of service of all notices hereby or by statute authorised to be served t e regulations as to service of notices contained in section 196 of the Law of Property Act 1925…shall be deemed to be incorporated herein but service on any one of the parties comprising the Landlord shall be deemed to be service on all …”

Under the Law of Property Act 1925, notices served on either party are validly served if they are left at ‘the last-known place of abode or business’ of the recipient party. Notices may also be served by registered post to the recipient party, again to their last-known place of abode or business. 

In this case, there were originally four landlords under the lease who were described as being all of the same address. The tenant sent four copies of the break notice to that address, addressed to each of the landlords. They were sent by recorded delivery and signed for.  

The landlords pursued a claim that the break notice was not binding, as the address used did not constitute the ‘place of abode or business’ of any of the landlord parties. In addition, one of the landlord parties had transferred his interest in the property and was no longer a ‘landlord’, although notice of this had not been given to the tenant. 

The Court found in favour of the tenant.  The Court held that service on the three current landlords at an address with which they had no subsisting connection was effective where that address was given as their address in the lease and the tenant had not been informed of a change of address. The lease was treated as deeming the address given to be a place of abode or business for each of the landlords and since they had given no new address, it was to be treated as their last known place of abode or business. 

The Court’s decision is sensible. However, costly litigation could have been avoided if the lease had been drafted more clearly and had stated that service on the landlords at the named address would be good service unless or until some other address was provided. 

This case highlights the importance for all parties of ensuring that address details stated in a lease are valid and kept up-to-date.

The onus is on landlords to notify their tenants of a change in address, otherwise they bear the risk of a break notice being validly served even though they may not have received it. If this scenario occurs then landlords risk losing that carefully negotiated notice period in which to prepare for the prompt re-letting of the premises so as to minimize void rent. 

Levett-Dunn v NHS Property Services Ltd [2016] EWHC 943 (Ch)