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SUMMARY OF
CORRESPONDENCE RE: PROPOSED
LANDLORD & TENANT BILL
The Council of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Associa
tion has been in correspondence with the Minister
for Justice regarding some difficulties which arose
out of the interpretation of the Statement issued
by the Government Information Bureau on be
half of the Minister for Justice on the 3rd March
1970 dealing with
the proposed Landlord &
Tenant Bill. The Statement was in the following-
form :
At a meeting of 3rd March, 1970, the Govern
ment considered the legislative proposals of the
Minister for Justice arising out of the Second
Report of the Landlord and Tenant Commission,
dealing with the question of extending leasehold
renewal rights and the right to purchase the fee
simple to new classes of tenants, including tenants
of land used for outdoor sports. The Government
approved of the Minister's proposals for imple
menting, with minor amendments,
the recom
mendations of
the Commission and authorised
the draft of the necessary Bill. Because, of neces
sity, some time must elapse before the proposals
approved by the Government take shape in legisla
tion, the Government have decided that the legis
lation should be expressed to operate from to-day
(3rd March, 1970). Accordingly, the Bill to be
placed before the Oireachtas will include a pro
vision to ensure that the benefits accruing under
the legislation will operate from 3 March, 1970,
even in the case of tenancies which in the ordinary
way would have terminated before the date of the
enactment of the proposed Act. The main legis
lative proposals approved by the Government are
as follows :
(1) Sports organisations who hold
land
for
recreational purposes will,
in certain circums
tances, be given the right to renew their tenancies.
To qualify, the club or organisation must hold the
land under a lease for 25 years, or, alternatively,
have occupied the land for 25 years out of the
preceding 40 years, and have expended 15 times
the rent or a minimum of £1,000 on the lands.
(2) The right to a reversionary lease (and the
right to purchase the fee simple) will be extended
to a new class of lessees holding under pre-1931
leases.
(3) The right to purchase the fee simple given
in the Ground Rents Act, 1967, will be extended
in certain cases to persons holding under leases
for 50 years or more (instead of 99 years or more).
(4) Tenants of vacant building land in built-
up areas will be given the right to acquire the fee
simple on the terms of purchase applicable to
ground rent leases, provided they have planning
permission to build.
(5) The rent on renewal of a ground rent
lease will be determined with due allowance for
improvements made by the tenant.
The proposed Bill will also cover changes in
the law arising out of the First Report of the
Landlord and Tenant Commission dealing with
occupational tenancies. The main changes pro
posed in the law as to occupational tenancies are
as follows :
(6) The tenancy on
renewal will be for 35
years, instead of the present 21 years, with pro-
vis on for a review of the rent by either landlord
or tenant every 7 years.
(7) A landlord will,
in certain circumstances
and on payment of compensation, be able to re
cover possession of buildings which are obsolete
or in an obsolete area before the lease expires.
(8) The requirements as to notice in relation
to compensation payable to a tenant for improve
ments made by him are to be relaxed, and so also
are the conditions which he must satisfy in order
to obtain a renewal of his tenancy.
Members of the profession found that two in
terpretations were being given to the Statement
in so far as its retrospective provisions were con
cerned, the first being that the retrospective pro
visions would only relate to legislative proposals
numbered 1
to 5 in the Statement and the second
being that they would relate to all eight pro
posals.
A second difficulty arose out of the interpreta
tion of paragraph 8 in the Statement, because it
was not clear whether the proposals would adopt
all the recommendations of the Report on Occu
pational Tenancies under the Landlord & Tenant
Act 1931 (PR. No. 9685) published in November
1967 and that if it were intended that proposals
numbered 6 and 7 would have retrospective effect
then it was of cardinal importance to practitioners
to know precisely what the proposals referred to
in paragraph 8 were before a solicitor could
advise his
landlord or tenant client as
to his
existing rights. Accordingly on the 30th July 1970
the Secretary of the Dublin Solicitors Bar Associa-