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Case Note on Bruton Tenancy

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Case note on Bruton v London & Quadrant Housing Trust [2000] 1 AC 406 Introduction In essence, “leases” are created between landlords and tenants as contracts to grant exclusive possession of the land for a defined period of time, in exchange of rent from tenant. Leases give contractual interests to tenants, while at the same time creates proprietary interests in the land by granting exclusive possession, which elevates a tenancy into an “estate/interest in land”. It can therefore be understood and has been suggested by commentators that leases are of dual nature and should “be characterised as something of a hybrid”[1]: a hybrid of contract and estate in land. In the landmark case of Bruton v London and Quadrant Housing Trust[2], …show more content…

In Lewisham Borough Council v Roberts[10], a case concerning delegation of power of requisition, Lord Denning affirmed that the Council ”cannot grant a lease or create any legal interest in the land…because it has itself no estate in the land out of which to carve any interest.” More recently, Neuberger J. in Re Friends Provident Life Office[11] reassured “a lease involves not only a contract, but also an estate in land”[12]. Therefore, the traditional concepts are long-standing principle and the possibility of leases existing merely in contractual nature and granting “tenant” merely contractual rights are denied by courts. On the contrary, in Bruton court’s understanding of “exclusive possession” was a relative concept. Exclusive possession granted to Mr. Bruton was found based on the fact that he was not required to “share possession with the trust, the Council or anyone else”[13] and “the trust did not retain such control”[14]. Whether the grantor possesses title or not was held to be irrelevant. Nevertheless, since LQHT in fact could not exclude the true owner (i.e. the Council) from taking possession, the exclusive possession enjoyed by the “tenant” would be “only as against the grantor and not the rest of the world”[15] and practically dependent on the contractual relationship. This has received support from later cases applying Bruton. In Islington LBC v Green[16]with similar facts to Bruton, the tenant raised an argument that the

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