When is a house not a house?
In this case the tenant had an 18th Century Central London house. The property was originally designed as a house but had subsequently been used as commercial premises. As at the date that the notice of claim was served under the 1967 Act claiming the freehold to the house the upper floors were dilapidated and not habitable.
The court had to consider the question as to whether the property constituted a ‘house’ within the meaning of section 2(1) of the 1967 Act. The county court and the Court of Appeal both looked at the meaning of ‘designed or adapted for living in’ as at the date of the notice of claim.
The House of Lords disagreed. It was their view that whether the property was ‘designed or adapted for living in’ at the relevant date was not material and that the question should be considered having regard to whether the property had been designed or adapted in this way at the date it was built.
In this particular case nothing had happened to the building during its lifetime to substantially detract from the fact that the upper three floors had been set out for residential use.
There was an argument that the property had been adapted for mixed business and residential use but if this did not affect the outcome of the appeal. A property does not need to be adapted solely for living in to be a house.
This is an important decision, but one key point to note is that the question as to whether a building originally designed for living in but subsequently adapted to another use would qualify for the purposes of the 1967 Act has not yet been answered. It is my view that it would not, but we will have to wait and see.
Mark Chick
31 March 2008