5 Lettings for fixed periods of between one and two years (‘Gladstone v Bower tenancies’)
5.71 As we have seen, lettings for fixed periods of less than one year, or for one year exactly, were caught by s 2 and took effect as tenancies from year to year. Similarly, tenancies for a term of two years or more continued after expiry as yearly tenancies.
In Gladstone v Bower173 the Court of Appeal held that there was a gap in the protection of the 1986 Act, in that a fixed term tenancy for a period of more than 12 months but less than two years was not converted into a yearly tenancy, and therefore fell outside the security of tenure provisions of the legislation. Before the Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995 came into force it was consequently very common for landlords to grant fixed term tenancies of between one and two years (for instance for eighteen months) as the tenant under such an agreement enjoyed no security of tenure.5.72 A further question was whether Gladstone v Bower tenancies were simply outside the security of tenure provisions of the 1986 Act, or whether they are not agricultural holdings at all, and more properly to be regarded as business tenancies within the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part I. The uncertainty was settled in EWP Ltd v Moore.174 The Court of Appeal there held that a Gladstone v Bower tenancy is properly a tenancy of an agricultural holding within the Agricultural Holdings Act 1986, but one without the benefit of the security of tenure provisions of the Act. They are not business tenancies within the 1954 Act, as had been argued. Although the tenant will not have the benefit of security of tenure, his rights to claim compensation for improvements under the 1986 Act are in theory unaffected (if unlikely to be of importance in practice). The decision in EWP Ltd v Moore authoritatively confirmed the approach previously assumed to be correct by the judiciary on at least 2 prior occasions.175
5.73 As with Ministry consent tenancies (above) the relevance of Gladstone v Bower agreements in the modern context will be limited. Where a succession, or series, of such short term lettings were made before 1 September 1995 it may be the case that, on its true construction, the overarching agreement between landlord and tenant was for a grant of more than 2 years and that a protected tenacy of an agricultural holding has been created by virtue of s 3 of the 1986 Act.176 The succession provision in Part IV of the 1986 Act did not apply to Gladstone v Bower agreements177 and there is no question of such an arrangement having been continued in the form of a sucesion tenancy under the 1986 Act.