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in Queen's Club Garden Estates Ltd.
v.
Bignell
in which it was held by the High Court in England
that in order that a weekly tenancy may be deter–
mined by a notice to quit, the notice must be one
which expires at the end of a periodic week from
the commencement of the
tenancy. The latest
decision in this conflict of judicial opinion was
recently given by the English Court of Appeal in
Lemon
v.
Lardeur in which Queen's Club Gardens
Estates Ltd.
v.
Bignell was
approved
and
Simmons
v.
Crossley overruled. It is now the law
in England that in any periodic tenancy whether
yearly, quarterly, monthly or weekly the notice to
quit to be valid must be given so as to expire at
the end of the current period of the tenancy. This
proposition was always accepted
in
regard
to
yearly tenancies but the decision if followed by
Irish Courts will alter the law as it now stands with
regard to monthly and weekly tenancies.
Requisition for Taxation of Costs
Estoppel
THE reserved judgment of the Supreme Court in
the case of James O'Brien, rate collector, to David
Fleming,
solicitor, was
delivered
recently by
O'Byrne, J. This was an appeal from the decision
of Overend, J., on an application to review the
taxation of a bill of solicitor and client costs. On
the taxation, the client, a rate collector, alleged
that there had been an agreement by his solicitor
not to charge any solicitor and client costs, but that
the solicitor should be remunerated for all work
incidental to the collection of rates by receiving
the party and party costs allowed against defaulting
ratepayers. The Taxing Master held that such an
agreement existed and disallowed the entire bill.
On the application to review, Overend, J., held
that normally a client would be estopped from
raising such a point after signing a requisition to
tax in the common form without reservation, but
that the solicitor, by agreeing to go into evidence
as to the existence of the agreement and not relying
on such estoppel, was in his turn estopped from
now raising that point. He held that the hearing
before the Taxing Master had been unsatisfactory,
inasmuch as the parties had not had an opportunity
of going fully into evidence on the matter in
dispute and remitted the case to the Taxing Master
for further hearing.
The client appealed to the
Supreme Court, where, after several days' argument,
judgment was reserved.
The reserved judgment
was in favour of the solicitor, dismissing the appeal.
In the course of his judgment O'Byrne, J., pointed
out that the application to review had not been quite
regular, inasmuch as no formal certificate of taxation
had been made, the Taxing Master having only
made a report on his findings. Or. 65, rule 66 (3),
of the Rules of 1905, contemplates that-an applica–
tion to review taxation shall only be made after the
certificate of taxation has been issued. As, how–
ever, it appeared that the present case was in accor–
dance with the usual procedure in the Taxing
Office, the Court considered that the irregularity
should not be treated as fatal to the application.
The Taxing Master, he said, had acted on a wrong
principle in deciding a material issue of fact on
insufficient evidence and the case must go back to
him for further hearing.
(I.L.T. & S.J.)
Landlord and Tenant Act, 1931 Application
for Extension of Time for Claiming Relief
BY section 19 (2)
(a)
of the Landlord and Tenant
Act, 1931, references in the section to the termina–
tion of a tenancy terminated by notice to quit, as a
point of time, are to be construed as the date of
service of the notice to quit.
In a recent appeal
heard by Davitt, J., against an order of the Circuit
Judge refusing an application by the appellant for
an extension of the time for serving notice of
intention to claim relief under the Act the facts
were as follows. The appellant had held certain
business premises as tenant to the respondent under
a lease for one year certain from ist October, 1942,
and thereafter from year to year, determinable at
the end of the first or any subsequent year of the
tenancy by three months' notice in writing. On
15th March, 1945, while the term had still some six
months to run to bring the tenant within the pro–
visions of Section 19 (i)
(a)
entitling him to a new
tenancy, the landlord served notice to quit to expire
on ist October following. The tenant did not
serve notice of intention to claim relief within one
month from service of the notice to quit as required
by Section 24 (2)
(a)
but subsequently applied under
Section 45 for an extension of the time for so doing.
It was held by the Circuit Judge that the tenant was
not entitled to the benefit of the Act, as the tenancy
having been determined for the purpose of Section 19
at the actual date of service of the notice to quit,
before the tenant had been in occupation for three
years, he never came within the provisions of
Section 19 (i)
(a)
although the expiration of the
notice
to quit was contemporaneous with the
expiration of three years from the commencement
of the tenancy. He further held that on the facts
of the case no justifiable cause had been shown
for the tenant's failure to serve the notice of intention
to claim relief in time. Davitt, J., affirmed the
order of the Circuit Judge. As pointed out by
counsel for the appellant in argument one result of
the definition in Section 19 (2)
(a)
of the termination
of the tenancy as meaning the date of service of the
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