Kay v Lambeth LBC

Kay v Lambeth LBC
Court	House of Lords
Full case name	Kay v Lambeth LBC; Price v Leeds CC
Citation(s)	[2006] 2 AC 465; The Times, 10 March 2006
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Lord Bingham

Kay v Lambeth London Borough Council [2006] 2 AC 465 was a case in the House of Lords relevant for English property law, UK human rights and English tort law case involving claims for possession by Lambeth London Borough Council against a "group of former short-life occupiers".^[1]

Facts

Lambeth Council owned a number of properties that were scheduled for demolition or redevelopment. The authority did not have sufficient funds to redevelop them. From about 1979, they entered into an informal arrangement with a housing trust under which the trust was to make the properties available for occupation, inter alia by homeless persons to whom the authority owed no duty. The trust purported to grant licences to the individual occupiers.

In 1986, the authority and the trust entered into an agreement, which was intended to formalise their existing arrangements. Under that agreement, the authority granted the trust a licence of all the properties. In 1995, the authority and the trust replaced the 1986 agreement with leases of the properties, with break clauses permitting termination by either party on written notice.

In 1999, the House of Lords gave judgment in Bruton v London & Quadrant Housing Trust [2000] 1 AC 406; (1999) 31 HLR. 902, ruling that the putative licences granted by the trust—including those granted to the defendant occupiers—were in law tenancies. Following that decision, the authority exercised the break clause in the lease and claimed possession on the ground that, on termination of the lease, the applicants had become trespassers.

The applicants contended, inter alia, that even if they had become trespassers, they were entitled to defend the proceedings by reference to their rights under Art.8. Their defences were struck out in the county court and appeals to the Court of Appeal and House of Lords dismissed (above). They applied to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that there had been a violation of Art.8 as there had been no determination by the court of the proportionality of the interference. In particular, they argued that the approach of the majority in Kay as to the width of gateway (b) was incompatible with Art.8.

Judgment

In the House of Lords it was held by Lord Bingham that the European Court accorded a generous margin of appreciation to the national authorities, attaching much importance to the facts of the case. Thus, it was for the courts to decide how in the first instance the principles expounded in Strasbourg should be applied in the special context of national legislation, practice and social and other considerations. To those decisions the ordinary rules of precedent should apply.^[2][3][4][5]

The ruling, which was in the plaintiff's favour, in effect stated that homeless individuals who have been granted a sub-licence allowing them to occupy accommodation temporarily passed to a real estate investment trust by a local authority, do not, as a result become secured tenants of the local authority.

See also

• Ratio decidendi

Notes