Have your cake and eat it: Caterpillar Properties v Park Cakes
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What is the Caterpillar Properties v Park Cakes case about and why is it important?
Hello and welcome to a newsflash episode of Unpacking the Case, the podcast by David Jones Bold, the real estate law specialist. As always, I'm joined by our head of legal training, Richard Snape. The suppliers behind the iconic Colin the Caterpillar cake found themselves at the centre of an important commercial property dispute with potentially significant implications for lease renewals and security of tenure under the Landlord and Tenant Act nineteen fifty four. The courts have been looking at whether an option to renew a lease could actually amount to an agreement for lease under section twenty eight of the Landlord and Tenant Act nineteen fifty four. Potentially meaning the tenancy falls outside the Act's protection altogether.
But what makes this even more interesting is just how quickly the case reached the Court of Appeal, with the judgment handed down only weeks after the original county court decision. So today we're going to look at the background facts, why the appeal moved so rapidly, what the Court of Appeals said, and what this could mean in practice for landlords, tenants and anyone drafting renewal provisions in commercial leases.
Hello, Richard.
Hello, Lizzie. Happy Friday afternoon.
And to you. We are back again with a nice case for a Friday afternoon. Going back to the case that we talked about back in the original county court decision on the twentieth of March, and it's Caterpillar Properties Limited and Park Cakes Limited. And we like it so much because there's a link to Colin the Caterpillar, which you'll obviously I'm sure explain. So the Court of Appeal gave their judgment very rapidly on this one on the thirteenth of May. So do you want to start by explaining why their decision came came round so quickly?
Why did the Court of Appeal hear the renewal‑option dispute so quickly?
Yeah, it was about options to renew a lease, an argument that's never been sort of discussed before under section twenty-eight of the Landborg and Tenants Act nineteen fifty-four, whether if it's an option to renew, it's uh basically an agreement for lease. in which case uh it doesn't come within the nineteen fifty four Landlord and Tenant Act. And uh the reason it was heard so rapidly, as the provisions and the civil procedure rules do allow it, uh in exceptional circumstances, uh it also leapfrogged the High Court and went straight to the Court of Appeal. The reason being that the option needed to be exercised to be valid, you know, to to actually create a new lease by uh june the fifteenth. which is not long away.
And that's why it was expedited. If it had gone through the normal kind of uh process, it would have been too late to make a decision on it. And it is quite an important issue actually. So the the Court of Appeal agreed uh that they would hear it and it would be leapfrogged to them on April the twenty second. It was uh actually heard on May the eighth and the judgment on almost unheard of is on was on May the thirteenth. And that's why that's why it was so rapidly dealt with.
And can you remind us some of the background facts and maybe tell us what it has to do with with chocolate cake?
Well, it's called the caterpillar cake, as you know, Lizzie. They It's not Caterpillar Properties Limited that make 'em, but uh Park Cakes, who had got a couple of leases of premises in Oldham and in Bolton, uh identical leases, both of which commenced on June the fourteenth. twenty oh seven.
What are the key facts of the lease and renewal option that sparked the dispute?
They included this option, uh as you mentioned, as you But we tried to find out. I tried to find out. I went to Marks and Spencer's food hall to see if uh I could verify that calling the caterpillar p cakes were made by Park Cakes in Oldham, but I couldn't do so. They didn't say. But they've been making cakes apparently for Marks and Spencer's since the nineteen forties. And Anyway. They uh both of these leases they had they were for twenty years, but they had an option to renew for a further ten years. And a condition of the option to renew was that the year the rent must have been paid, the rent was payable in advance by the option uh the date of the option, as a sort of condition for exercise in it.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the Caterpillar Properties v Park Cakes case about and why is it important?
0:00–1:48
2
Why did the Court of Appeal hear the renewal‑option dispute so quickly?
1:48–3:35
3
What are the key facts of the lease and renewal option that sparked the dispute?
3:35–5:17
4
How did the Court of Appeal interpret section 28 of the 1954 Act?
5:17–6:50
5
Why did the landlord’s argument that the option was an agreement for lease fail?
6:50–8:13
6
What precedent cases did the judges rely on when deciding the renewal‑option issue?
8:13–9:55
7
What practical implications does this judgment have for drafting commercial lease renewal options?
9:55–11:15
Speakers
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