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It is for these reasons that legislation would be necessary to permit indeterminate leases.
It
The position with periodic tenancies is different. is now established that they may be of uncertain length provided that it is know at the commencement when the term can be brought
to an end even if it is not known when it will be ended. In
Re Midland Railway's Agreement 1971 Ch 725 an extremely strong Court of Appeal held that an annual tenancy stipulating that the landlord could terminate it on notice, but with a proviso that he could only do so if and when the premises were required for his own use, was held to be valid. The Court also held that in a periodic tenancy an express curb on the power to terminate was not repugnant to the nature of the leasehold interest so long as it was not an
attempt to prevent the landlord from ever terminating the tenancy. Russell L.J. stated the position as follows at p.733:
"It may well be that if in a periodic tenancy an
attempt was made to prevent the lessor ever determining the tenancy, that would be so inconsistent with the stated bargain that either a greater estate must be found to have been constituted or the
attempt must be treated as repugnant. But short of that we see no reason why an express curb.......should be treated as repugnant to the nature of the leasehold interest granted. In Bream's Property Investment Co. v. Strovlger 1948 2KB 1 a curb on the lessors for three years unless they required the premises for their own use was upheld........It follows that in a periodic tenancy a similar curb for 10, 20 or 50 years should not be rejected as repugnant to the concept of a periodic tenancy....."
In Centaploy Ltd. v. Matlodge Ltd. 1971 Ch 1, the Court accepted the authority of the previous case but held on the facts that the curb on termination was void because there was no possibilit whatsoever of the landlord ever being able to terminate.
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