“The court proceedings will not begin until after:26 November 2017 ”
“NOTES ON THE EARLIEST DATE ON WHICH THE COURT PROCEEDINGS CAN BE BROUGHT … Where the landlord is seeking possession on grounds … 8, 10 to 13 … court proceedings cannot begin earlier than 2 weeks from the date this notice is served. …. … After the date shown in section 5, court proceedings may be begun at once but not later than 12 months from the date on which this notice is served. After this time the notice will lapse and a new notice must be served before possession can be sought.”
“The notice referred to in subsection (1)(c) above is one which— (a) is in such form as may be prescribed; (b) is served before the assured tenancy is entered into; (c) is served by the person who is to be the landlord under the assured tenancy on the person who is to be the tenant under that tenancy; and (d) states that the assured tenancy to which it relates is to be a shorthold tenancy.”
“There are documents in which the need for certainty is paramount and which admissible background is restricted to avoid the possibility that the same document may have different meanings for different people according to their knowledge of the background. Documents required by bankers’ commercial credits fall within this category. Article 13(a) of the Uniform Customs and Practice for Commercial Credits (1993 revision) says (echoing Lord Greene M.R.’s phrase in Hankey v. Clavering) that the documents must ‘upon their face’ appear to be in accordance with the terms and conditions of the credit. But the reasons of policy which require the restriction of background in this case do not apply to notices given pursuant to clauses in leases.”
“Having expressed my own view and referred to those authorities, I would nevertheless regard it as incautious to attempt to express any general conclusion as to the application of the Mannai case to the interpretation of notices served under a statutory regime. This is because, as Peter Gibson L.J. pointed out in the York case at page 27, ‘one should bear in mind that in a statutory context there may be requirements which have to be observed and without which a notice will be invalid. But the same may be true in the case of a contractual context.’ Taking due note of the first part of that, I consider that the better approach is to look at the particular statutory provisions pursuant to which the notice is given and identify what its requirements are. Having done so, it should then be possible to arrive at a conclusion as to whether or not the notice served under it adequately complies with those requirements. If anything in the notice contains what appears to be an error on its face, then it may be that there will be scope for the application of the Mannai approach, although this may depend on the particular statutory provisions in question. The key question will always be: is the notice a valid one for the purpose of satisfying the relevant statutory provisions?”
“Its essential purpose is to tell the proposed tenant that the tenancy is to be an assured shorthold tenancy, with consequences specified in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Form 7, in particular that ‘the landlord may have the right to possession if he wants.’”
“In applying the Mannai approach, it is … important to have well in mind the context of the evident purpose of the requirement of a notice in the prescribed form. If, notwithstanding errors or omissions, the substance of the notice is sufficiently clear to the reasonable person reading it, the notice is likely to serve the purpose identified by Nourse L.J.” 25. He went on to say in relation to the first appeal at [27]: “I agree with [counsel for tenant] that the facts of this case are close to those in Panayi v. Roberts and that Mann L.J. resolved in the tenant’s favour the narrow issue that a notice which gave the wrong date (in that case the termination date) was not ‘substantially to the same effect’ as one which gave the correct date, at least in a case where the mistake was not obvious. In the light of the later case of Manel v. Memon, in which Nourse L.J. identified the purpose of serving a notice, and of the approach to the construction of notices laid down by the House of Lords in Mannai, this court is, in my judgment, bound to take the broader approach to the issue of validity. I do not read the authorities as laying down a two stage test which can only be operated when the error is ‘obvious.’ The question is simply whether, notwithstanding any errors and omissions, the notice is ‘substantially to the same effect’ in accomplishing the statutory purpose of telling the proposed tenant of the special nature of an assured shorthold tenancy. Despite the error as to the start date, this notice did that. I would accept the contention of [counsel for the landlord] that this notice was in a form ‘substantially to the same effect’ as the prescribed form and is valid.”
“As regards the form and content of the notice, s.20 simply requires that the notice given to the tenant should be in a particular form, and in addition that the notice should contain the statement set out in s.20(2)(c). There is full compliance with those two express requirements in the present appeals and therefore those requirements are not in issue. Section 20 is silent about the completion of the prescribed form. The requirement to complete the prescribed form with information is implicit rather than explicit in s.20. However, the test established by the Ravenseft case applies whether the defect in the s.20 notice is an error in, or the omission of, information required to be inserted into the prescribed form or is an error in, or the omission of, one of the prescribed parts of the form. In either case, the Ravenseft case establishes that the test which the court must apply is whether, notwithstanding any errors or omissions that have been demonstrated, the notice is ‘substantially to the same effect’ as a notice in the proper form which has been duly completed. In reaching its conclusion, the court must bear in mind the statutory purpose of the notice, namely that of telling the proposed tenant of the special nature of an assured shorthold tenancy.”
“These tenants, it is argued, knew that their tenancy ran from the fourth to the third. They can have been in no doubt that the landlord was giving them notice that after the expiry of the December 2002 to January 2003 period, he would be going to court to seek possession if they did not voluntarily vacate the property. Saying ‘I want possession on 4 January’ is no different from saying ‘I want possession on the day after 3 January’.”
“20. …. [Counsel for the landlord] argued that the reasonable recipient test applied whether or not the error is obvious…. In my view, the obviousness or otherwise of an error is simply a factor in deciding what the reasonable recipient would understand by the notice. The more obvious it is that a slip has been made, the less likely is the reasonable recipient to be in any doubt as to what was meant. 21. In this case, however, a good deal hangs upon the precise question which is to be asked. If the question is simply, what would a reasonable tenant understand by this notice, then a reasonable tenant would understand that the landlord wanted to regain possession on or after4 January 2003 . If the question is what is the purpose of requiring such notice, I would accept that one purpose is to give the tenant at least two month’s notice that the landlord will be starting the process of regaining possession once the relevant period of the tenancy has expired, so that the tenant can begin to make plans accordingly. 22. But if the question is, what does the statute require, the answer is that the statute requires the notice to specify a date which is the last day of the period. The statute does not require the landlord to specify a date on which he requires possession. This is not a notice to quit. The landlord will not get possession without the tenant's consent unless he goes to court. That is why the statute requires the landlord to state that possession is required ‘after a date specified in the notice, being the last day of a period of the tenancy’. 23. This is not a case where the legislation permits a form to be ‘substantially to the same effect’. The subsection is clear and precise. Nor is it difficult for landlords to comply. They know when the period ends. Furthermore, this is not a case where the consequences of failure to comply are particularly serious for landlords: a defective notice can be cured the next day. Even if the defect is not noticed until the point is taken in court, a valid notice can then be given. The landlord is not unwillingly and unwittingly saddled with a tenant who has security of tenure, as would be the case with an invalid notice under section 20 of the 1988 Act. One purpose of the subsection may be to alert tenants to the need to look for alternative accommodation, but another is to give the courts a clear and simple set of criteria which trigger their mandatory duty to order possession. The notice in this case was only one day out, but …. [counsel for the landlord’s] alternative submission would leave room for all sorts of arguments, uncertainty and inconsistency up and down the country on a matter about which there should be no doubt at all.”
“28. … The notice in [Fernandez v McDonald] case specified4 January 2003 and no other date. It should have specified 3 January rather than 4 January. The landlord argued that the tenant would have understood that 4 January was a mistake for 3 January, relying for this argument on the decision of the House of Lords in the Mannai case. In that case the House of Lords said that if the reasonable recipient of a notice would have realised what the server of the notice intended to convey, an obvious error could be corrected. 29. … this court rejected that argument. It held that [what] the statute required was notice specifying the last day of a period of the tenancy and the notice in that case had not satisfied the statutory requirement. 30. So I approach this part of the case on the basis that in the case of a s.21(4) notice the court cannot correct obvious mistakes even if satisfied that a reasonable recipient would have realised that a mistake had been made and had also realised what information the server of notice had tried to convey. But importantly, the court in Fernandez v McDonald did not say that Mannai was irrelevant. What Hale L.J. said at [18] was that the question was how the reasonable recipient test, that is the test in Mannai, was to be applied to the case of a statutory notice. 31. I accept [counsel for the landlord]’s submission that the statutory requirement is that the notice under s.21(4) must specify a date that has the dual characteristics of being (a) two months after the notice is given and (b) the last day of the period of the tenancy. The notice in Fernandez v McDonald did not do but the notice in our case did. It did so by means of the formula. The barrenness of [counsel for the tenant]’s argument is that if the fixed date and the formula date had been contained on two separate pieces of paper served simultaneously, the landlord could have issued a single claim form relying on both notices and would undoubted have succeeded. 32. The decision in Fernandez v McDonald was concerned with what the statute required. Hale L.J. was clear about what the notice in that case meant; it meant 4 January not 3 January. But we are also concerned with what the notice in our case means. Answering that question does not in my judgement rule out the approach of Hussain v Bradford Community Housing Ltd. 33. In order to see whether the notice complies with the statutory requirement, one must see what it does. In our case the notice refers to two dates, the fixed date and the date calculated by reference to the formula. They are clearly alternatives, as the word ‘or’ separating them makes clear, so they are at least capable of leading to different results. In the event that they do, which one prevails? 34. In my judgement, the reasonable recipient of this notice would look at the back of the form which contains the notes and they say that the notice must specify the last day of a period of the tenancy. She would know that she paid her rent on the Monday and she would be able to see from the calendar that1 January 2012 was a Saturday. So it obviously was not the last day of a period of the tenancy. Conformably with Fernandez v McDonald, that mistake, if such it was, cannot be corrected. But that leads to the conclusion that that part of the notice does not do what the notes on the back say it must do. So that part of the notice cannot be effective. Since that alternative is ruled out as being ineffective, the other alternative must prevail.” of the tenancy and the notice in that case had not satisfied the statutory requirement. not do what the notes on the back say it must do. So that part of the notice cannot be effective. Since that alternative is ruled out as being ineffective, the other alternative must prevail.”
“Proceedings will not be issued before26 November 2018 but will be issued within 12 months of service of the notice.”
“That purpose, in my judgment, is to give to the tenant the information which the provision requires to be given in the notice to enable the tenant to consider what she should do and, with or without advice, to do that which is in her power and which will best protect her against the loss of her home.”