HC Deb 16 July 1896 vol 42 cc1684-92

(1.) For the purpose of an application to fix a fair rent, the tenant of a holding shall he deemed to he in bonâ fide occupation thereof notwithstanding—

  1. (a) that any dwelling-house on the holding, not being the dwelling of the tenant, and not having been erected by the tenant in breach of his contract of tenancy or of a statutory condition, is sublet to or in the occupation of another person; or
  2. (b) that any other part of the holding is, otherwise than in breach of the contract of tenancy, or of a statutory condition, sublet to or in the occupation of another person, if in the estimation of the court a part not less than seven-eighths or thereabouts in value of the holding remains in the bonâ fide occupation of the tenant; and if the sub-hitting was made before the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, or was substantially in substitution for a letting existing before that date:
Provided that this enactment shall not apply unless the court think it reasonable to entertain the application having regard to the acreage of the holding and to any other matter which they think should be taken into consideration, and the court may entertain the application notwithstanding that any such house or part of a holding is occupied by a person to whom it has been sublet in contravention of Section two of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881.

(2.) Where a part of the property held under one demise is sublet, and the property was let to the tenant subject to the tenancy of some other person in the part sublet, the court may direct that the part so sublet shall thenceforth be, or, if it is an incorporeal hereditament he treated as, a separate holding, and shall be held during the continuance of the tenancy at such rent as the court determine to be the proper proportion of the rent reserved by the demise, and the court may fix a fair rent for the remainder of the property held under the demise, and the Land Law Acts as amended by this Act shall apply to that remainder as if it were a separate holding; Provided that, if the landlord so elect, the I court shall order that the tenant of the part so sublet shall he the tenant of such landlord as his immediate landlord.

MR. MAURICE HEALY moved, in paragraph (a) subsection (1), to omit the words "not being the dwelling of the tenant." He asked whether they could not be interpreted to mean that, in the case where two holdings, each with a separate dwelling-house, had been joined together, the tenant would not be allowed to sublet the dwelling-house which he did not occupy.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND

said that the intention of the words was that, where the dwelling-house was in the occupation of some person other than the tenant, that should not be held as a reason for deciding that the tenant was not in occupation of the tenancy. In the case put by the hon. and learned Member, the tenant would be able to sublet one or two dwelling-houses.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

*MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL moved, in the same paragraph, to omit the words "or of a statutory condition," on the ground that the words were superfluous.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND

thought that the words were necessary, and they had been introduced in order to prevent cases of seeming hardship, which had arisen under the Act of 1881, when a tenant applying to have a fair rent fixed was found to have sub let.

Amendment negatived.

MR. MAURICE HEALY moved, in paragraph (b), to leave out the words "seven-eighths" and to insert instead the words "three-fourths," as the portion necessary for qualifying as bonâ fide occupation in order to have a fair rent fixed.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

could not accept the Amendment, on the ground that seven-eighths was a reasonable amount for qualifying.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. T. M. HEALY moved, in the same paragraph, after "value of the holding, to insert the words "excluding from such value the value of any buildings erected by the tenant." He said there were many cases where a farmer had erected three or four cottages for his labourers, and if they were erected by himself they ought to be exempted from the eighth, which might be sub-let.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

said he was prepared to accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

*MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL moved in the same paragraph to omit the words:— and if the sub-letting was made before the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, or was substantially in substitution for a letting existing before that date. There seemed to him, he said, to be no reason for drawing the line at the particular date mentioned in this paragraph of the clause. There was nothing to indicate why it should be so drawn, and it appeared to him to be unnecessary and arbitrary

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND

said if his right. hon. and learned Friend had read the clause more closely, he would have seen there was every reason for selecting the limit that had been made. Up to 1881 a tenant from year to year was not prohibited from sub-letting, and therefore sub-letting up to that period was "innocent sub-letting." The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881, for the first time prohibited a tenant from year to year from sub-letting, and the Government had framed this clause so as to enable him to get a fair rent fixed, nothwithstanding that he had sublet when it was no violation of any law, but they prohibited him from getting a fair rent fixed where the sub-letting was a violation of the law. That was the distinction.

MR. CARSON

pointed out that the word "before" ("the passing of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887") should be "at."

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

agreed that that should be so.

*MR SERJEANT HEMPHILL

said he would not press his Amendment, though he was not convinced as to the necessity for the limit.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Word "before" struck out, and word "at" inserted instead thereof.

MR. MAURICE HEALY moved at the end of paragraph (b) Sub-section (1) to insert the words:— Provided that a sub-letting or sub-division shall not, for the purposes of this section, be deemed to be a breach of the contract of tenancy unless, with a reasonable time after the subletting or sub-division came to the knowledge of the landlord or his agent, he served on the tenant notice of his dissent from the sub-letting or sub-division, or instituted a proceeding against the lessee founded upon the said breach of contract. The object of the Amendment was to provide that the prohibition of sub-letting in a contract of tenancy if it was to operate against the tenant must have been an actual operation. He remembered one case particularly where the tenant had had his holding sub-let for 60 years prior to the passing of the Act of 1881. The landlord knew of the subletting and the agent knew of it, and no objection had ever been taken of it. In a case of that kind would it not be a hard thing to call into life a prohibition of the lease, not to secure any good result to the tenant or to the suit-tenant, but simply to prevent a fair rent being fixed.

MR. SWIFT MACNEILL

said that in October 18th 1894, at a Land Conference in Belfast, the hon. Member for South Tyrone strongly supported the proposals of the Morley Committee on the subject of sub-letting. The hon. Member said that there were cases of sub-letting to which the landlord had tacitly assented, but that as soon as the tenants prepared to apply to have fair rents fixed, the landlord raised the objection that there had been sub-letting. The hon. Member pointed out that it was not the sub-letting to which the landlord objected, but the fixing of a fair rent. The speech of the hon. Member might have been delivered in support of the very Amendment now proposed. The fact that a tenant had sub-let ought not to be used as a means of cheating him out of a fair rent when no detriment was done to the land in consequence of the sub-letting.

MR. CARSON

hoped the Government would not accept the Amendment. Tenants ought to be compelled to keep to the provisions of their contracts, and also to the statutory conditions affecting their position.

MR. KNOX

said that it was not proposed to interfere in cases where there had been a breach of statutory conditions. It was only fair that a tenant who broke those conditions should suffer. But a distinction ought to be drawn between those eases and cases where there had been a breach of contractual provisions. There was a good deal of sub-letting in Ireland; indeed, in parts of Ulster it was customary. There was less rigid adherence formerly than now to stipulations against sub-letting, and it was not fair that tenants should suffer in consequence.

COLONEL WARING

said the hon. Member had spoken of chicanery and all sorts of subterfuges being resorted to by the landlord in order to prevent the tenant, who might have sub-let, from getting the advantage of a fair rent being fixed. How did the hon. Member mean to prove that the sub-letting by the tenant came to the knowledge of the landlord at any period? The hon. Member had stated that there were cases in which tenants had sub-let for many years, that the fact was within the knowledge of the landlord, and yet that the landlord had sought to prevent the tenant going into Court because of that sub-letting. Well, he had known cases where tenants had sub let for two years, and had successfully hidden the fact from the landlord in the most skilful way. It would be, impossible to prove in cases of this kind, where the subletting or sub-division was carried out clandestinely, when the fact came or was brought to the knowledge of the landlord or his agent. The Amendment would lead to endless irritation and litigation. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. MAURICE HEALY

said his Amendment would do no such harm as the hon. and gallant Member suggested, for, unless the tenant succeeded in proving that his landlord knew of the sub-letting and tacitly consented to it, he would not be able to claim any benefit from the provision. The Amendment, therefore, required that it should be shown that the landlord was aware of the sub-letting, and all he asked was that, in cases where the fact of the subletting had been known for years by the landlord, he should not be able to prevent the tenant from going into Court to get a fair rent fixed on the ground that the tenant had sub-let without agreement. The Government had recognised in a subsequent clause—the 8th Clause—the propriety of this protection being given to tenants placed in the circumstances stated, and he hoped the Amendment would be accepted.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND

said the 8th Clause referred to a state of things and circumstances different to that contemplated by the hon. and learned Member. However, it would be admitted by everyone who knew anything about agricultural land in Ireland that the practice of sub-letting was a great evil, and had always been so regarded. Numbers of statutes had been passed during the last half century in order to restrain it, and this clause was framed to deprive a tenant of the advantage he would otherwise have of getting a fair rent fixed in cases where he had sub-let in violation of his contract. If the terms of his contract that he should not sub-lot, and yet he did so, it was difficult to see why he should be put in the same position after the violation of contract, as a man who had observed the terms of his contract. ["Hear, hear!"] The evil of sub-letting could be shown in no more forcible way than by the fact that when the Act of 1881 was passed it was one of the statutory conditions that the moment a tenant got a fair rent fixed he was to be absolutely prohibited from sub-letting. That section could not have been inserted in the Act unless sub-letting was treated as a great evil and was to be prevented in every possible way. The 8th Clause, as he had said, dealt altogether with a different matter relating to the Statute Law of Ireland, and one which to some people might seem absurd and grotesque. If a landlord made a lease containing a prohibition against assignment, and if the tenant sublet, the lessee might afterwards turn upon the tenant at any time and say "although I am sub-letting and been in occupation for years, yet you are not my tenant, because the lease under which I myself hold contains a prohibition against sub-letting. That was a ridiculous position of things, and the he 8th Clause was introduced to prevent a manœuvre of this kind.

MR. J. MORLEY

said that what he wanted to point out was that they were all agreed that public policy was opposed to sub-letting, and that the law should be so framed as to prevent as far as possible that rule of public policy being contravened. But in the case referred to, the landlord had been for years conniving at the infraction of the rule of public policy, and it was only when the tenant went into Court for the purpose of having a fair rent fixed that the landlord suddenly awoke to the fact that there had been an infraction of the rule, and objected on that ground to a fair rent being fixed.

MR. CARSON

How could the landlord help the sub-letting.

MR. J. MORLEY

said that at any-rate the landlord had acquiesced in the subletting of the holding, and therefore it was not right that he should be allowed to raise the objection that the holding had been sub let as a ground for refusing to fix a fair rent. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. DILLON

said that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork would be a barrier against sub-letting. ["Hear!"]

MR. MAURICE HEALY

said that under the existing law, if the tenant had obtained the landlord's express consent to the sub letting of the holding, the tenant could not get a fair rent fixed.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

said that he was quite ready to consent to an Amendment of the clause as would enable a fair rent to be fixed in cases where the landlord had given an express consent to the sub-letting. ["Hear, hear!"]

MR. MAURICE HEALY

said that in that case he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. MAURICE HEALY moved at the end of paragraph (b) Sub-section (1), after the word "date," to insert,— or (c) that a portion of the holding is sublet if the holding was let to the tenant subject to the tenancy of some other person.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

opposed the Amendment. They had dealt with the problem in a different way. The policy had been to discourage middlemen as much as possible—["hear, hear!"]—and the effect of the Amendment would be to encourage them. He thought that the Bill as it stood would give more protection to the tenant than was proposed by the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. MAURICE HEALY moved after Sub-section (2) to add— (3) The subletting of any such dwelling-house as is referred to in Sub-section one (a) of this section during the continuance of a statutory term shall not be deemed to be a breach of any statutory condition.

He said he hoped that this Amendment would be accepted by the Government.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

said he was not quite sure that the breach of the statutory condition contemplated by Subsection (a) was of the same kind as that contemplated in this Amendment. In Subsection (a) it was a question of where the dwelling-house had been erected by the tenant in breach of his contract of tenancy. Here it was a question not of the erection, but of the sub-letting of such dwelling-house. He should like to consider the Amendment a little more carefully before he gave any definite answer upon the subject.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. KNOX moved at the end of the clause to add:— (3) Where on a holding subject to the Ulster custom the sub-letting was not such as would have barred a claim for compensation under the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, the tenant shall be entitled to have a fair rent fixed.

MR. CARSON

pointed out that one of the main objects of this Bill had been to separate entirely the law in its application to disturbance and compensation and the law as to the fixing of fair rent. If they entered upon an inquiry as to how far the two are co-relative, they would get into a great amount of discussion which seemed to have been cleared away by the Amendments put down by the Chief Secretary. There seemed to be no reason in the world why because sub-letting was not a bar to a claim for compensation it should not be a bar to the fixing of a fair rent.

MR. GERALD BALFOUR

said he should like to know in what respect the provisions of the Act put the Ulster tenants in a different position in regard to the question of sub-letting.

MR. KNOX

said he thought perhaps he had better not press the Amendment further.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 3, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4,—