Consultation Paper on the General Law of the Landlord and Tenant

A Common Law4.09 Originally at common law a fixture was regarded as atenant’s fixture (and, therefore, removable by the tenant) if it wasinstalled in the demised premises for the purposes of the tenant’strade or for ornamental and domestic purposes. 18 The formercategory, of fixture for trade purposes, covered a very wide range ofitems, but it seems that the latter category of fixtures for ornamentaland domestic purposes may have been more limited in the sense thatit would not apply where the item could not be removed in its entirestate, ie without dismantling. 194.10 The category of trade fixture did not apparently apply toagricultural tenants, 20 but that position was changed by the Landlordand Tenant Act 1851. 21 The 1851 Act gave agricultural tenants astatutory right to remove agricultural and trade fixtures, and buildingserected by them, provided prior notice was given to the landlord andthe land was left in as good a condition as before the fixtures wereinstalled. The landlord was, however, given the right to elect topurchase the items instead. Although the 1851 Act remains on ourstatute book, 22 it was largely superseded by later legislation. 23 In anyevent agricultural tenancies largely disappeared from the Irish sceneas a result of the Land Purchase Acts. There has been little sign ofthe revival of agricultural tenancies which the Land Act 1984 wasdesigned to promote. 24 Apart from this, arguably the 1851 Act lost18192021222324See Deeble v McMullen (1857) 8 ICLR 353; Barnett v Lucas (1872) IR 6CL 247; Cosby v Shaw (1887) 23 LR Ir 181; Earl of Antrim v Dobbs(1891) 30 LR Ir 424. See paragraph 4.11 for section 17 of Deasy’s Act.See Buckland v Butterfield (1820) 2 Brod & B 54 (conservatory on brickfoundation). See also Spyer v Phillipson [1931] 2 Ch 183; Young vDalgety Plc [1987] 1 EGLR 116.Elwes v Maw (1802) 3 East 38. Cf market gardeners: see Wardell v Usher(1841) 3 Scot NR 508; Mears v Callender [1901] 2 Ch 388.This Act applied to both England and Ireland.In England it was replaced by later agricultural holdings legislation: seenow Agricultural Holdings Act 1986 and Agricultural Tenancies Act 1995.Eg section 4 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 conferredrights to compensation for improvements made by tenants.This “disapplied” the old nineteenth century legislation, such as the 1870Act, but not the 1851 Act.77