1 Aggregate of agricultural land

5.05 If the substantial user is agricultural, no severance of the contract of tenancy into agricultural and non-agricultural land is possible, and the whole will be within the 1986 Act.

‘A Contract of Tenancy’

5.06 Section 1 envisaged a single contract of tenancy. So in Blackmore v Butler⁷ where land was let on the understanding that a farm cottage would be let to the tenant later when it fell vacant, there were two contracts of tenancy, each of which had to be looked at separately to see whether it qualified for protection as an agricultural holding. There is a possible exception where a second agreement expresses itself to be supplemental to the first, and applies the latter’s provisions to the additional land or buildings subsequently let, thus allowing the court to read the two documents as one tenancy for the purposes of s 1.⁸ Where land was let under a single contract of tenancy, the subsequent partition and assignment of the tenant’s leasehold interest does not create separate holdings. To determine whether the partitioned parts are comprised in an agricultural holding, the land comprised in the original contract of tenancy has to be looked at as a whole.⁹ Similarly a severance of the landlord’s reversionary interest, and its assignment in part to a third party, does not create separate tenancies of the severed parts.¹⁰ The latter will still be comprised in an agricultural holding, and protected as such, if the substantial user of the whole remains agricultural.