Esso Teo. v Wong

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 01 January 1975
• Date: 01 January 1975
• Docket Number: [D 3152]
• Court: High Court

(H.C.)

Esso Teo

and

Wong

Period of one year and thereafter as tenant from month to month - Termination of tenancy - Whether tenant held for term of not less than one year -Landlord and Tenant Act, 1931 (No. 55), s. 19. sub-s. 1(a).

The defendant had been the tenant of a tenement upon the terms of a tenancy agreement made between him and the predecessors in title of the plaintiffs. The tenement was used by the defendant for business purposes and, when the tenancy was terminated by the service of a notice to quit, the defendant claimed in the Circuit Court to be entitled to a new tenancy in the tenement pursuant to the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1931. The plaintiffs claimed possession of the tenement in separate ejectment proceedings. In order to succeed in his claim to a new tenancy, and to defend the ejectment proceedings, the defendant was required by the provisions of s. 19, sub-s. 1 (a) of the Act of 1931 to establish that. immediately before the service in the year 1969 of the notice to quit, he had held the tenement under a contract of tenancy "for a term of not less than one year." It was provided by the tenancy agreement that the tenancy should "commence on the 15th day of May, 1962, and continue . . . for a period of one year and thereafter as tenant from month to month until the tenancy is terminated . . ."The Circuit...