In this case the Court of Appeal had to consider the meaning of the word ‘adjoining’ under section 1AA(3) of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. The question arose where the defendant had argued that she was entitled to buy the freehold of property that she had owned under leasehold. This had been refuted by the claimant.
In the court, Lord Justice Rimer had admitted the flexibility of the word ‘adjoining’ and had sought a particularly interesting intrinsic aid that he used to assist him. That assistance in interpretation, he decided, was found in Charles Dickens’ book Bleak House. In the book the author had described the inquest into one of the characters, Krook, who had died of spontaneous combustion in his rag-and-bottle warehouse. The venue for the inquest had been held in Sol’s Arms, described as ‘a well-conducted tavern immediately adjoining the premises in question (the warehouse) on the west side…’ The judge stated that the word ‘adjoining’ was not, as such, always used to mean ‘touching’. What may have been interpreted as ‘touching’ could also be seen as being ‘adjacent to’ or ‘very close by’.
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