Consultation Paper on the General Law of the Landlord and Tenant

the landlord and the original tenant, it is more difficult for a thirdparty to establish that this tenancy was assigned to him or her orally.Notwithstanding that, it may cause hardship that such a third party isapparently prevented by section 9 from establishing an assignment ina particular case. In particular it may be questioned whether it is notopen to such a party to invoke an equitable doctrine such as estoppelto prevent the other parties (assigning tenant and landlord) fromdenying that an assignment has taken place. Indeed the Commissionis not entirely convinced that such cases would not come within theexpression “act and operation of law.” It is true that it has often beenstated that this wording in section 9 covers matters such as theautomatic vesting of the tenant’s interest in the Official Assignee onbankruptcy or in the personal representative on death of the tenant. 96However, they may also cover situations where the actions of theparties would lead the court to hold that an estoppel should arise, byway of analogy with surrenders by act and operation of law. 97 TheCommission provisionally recommends that section 9 of Deasy’s Act,which deals with assignments, should be retained but that it should bemade clear that it does not exclude the courts’ jurisdiction to applyequitable principles such as the doctrine of estoppel.9697Foley v Galvin [1932] IR 339, 350 (per Kennedy CJ). Other examples arethe vesting in the creditor by way of mortgage where a judgment mortgageis registered under the Judgment Mortgage (Ireland) Act 1850, or wherethe tenant’s interest is seized by the sheriff under a writ of fieri facias andsold in execution of a judgment against the tenant: see Wylie op citparagraph 21.05.See paragraphs 2.21–22 above.52