Clause 6.—(APPLICATION OF PART I TO TENANCIES AND SUB-TENANCIES HELD ON TRUST.) (Hansard, 5 February 1951)

§ The Solicitor-General

I beg to move, in page 6, line 25, at the end, to insert: (4) In section (Power of landlord to determine continued tenancy in event of assignment or subletting) of this Act the reference to assignment does not include a reference to a disposition by a trustee or personal representative in favour of a person beneficially interested (whether directly or derivatively) under the trusts or, as the case may be, in the estate of the deceased person or under trusts of which the deceased person was trustee. 1353 This Amendment is consequential upon the Government's new Clause—which I propose, with your permission, Major Milner, to move in due course—which gives the landlord a right to exercise his right of forfeiture where after the date of expiry of a ground lease the tenant has assigned the whole or part of the property. Unless we make this Amendment, we might adversely affect the case of an assignment which is designed to give effect to a trust.

Obviously, the new Clause should operate only where there is an assignment of a beneficial interest, and it is therefore necessary to deal with the case where there is a legal assignment to give effect to a trust, but where either no beneficial interest passes or where the passing of the beneficial interest is created not by the assignment but for example by a death. One kind of case is an assignment where there is an assent by personal representatives in favour of a legatee. Obviously, they will not become the assignors about whom one is speaking when talking of the exercise of this right of forfeiture. It is convenient as a matter of position to make the change in Clause 6 which deals with the rights of beneficiaries under trusts.