Signed, unsealed, undelivered? When is a claim ‘made’ under s.29A of the 1954 Act?

The Courts are awash with litigation concerning claims being issued out of time, the consequences of which often form the basis for negligence claims. In fact, I posit that every litigation solicitor and barrister has at some point considered paragraph 6.1 of Practice Direction 7A:

“Proceedings are started when the court issues a claim form at the request of the claimant (see rule 7.2) but where the claim form as issued was received in the court office on a date earlier than the date on which it was issued by the court, the claim is “brought” for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980 and any other relevant statute on that earlier date”.

But what does this have to do with bringing claims under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954? According to the recent County Court decision in Shaikh and Hoque v Mohammad [2025] EWCC 77¸quite a lot.

Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 – the relevant provisions

Both landlords and tenants under 1954 Act leases can apply to the Court under s.24 for an order for the grant of a new tenancy, if the landlord has given notice under s.25 to terminate the tenancy, or if the tenant has made a request for a new tenancy in accordance with s.26. A landlord can also apply under s.29(2) for an order for the termination of the tenancy without the grant of a new tenancy, subject to certain conditions being satisfied.

Section 29A provides an in-built statutory period for such applications to be made:

• Subject to section 29B of this Act, the court shall not entertain an application: (a) by the tenant or the landlord under section 24(1) of this Act; or (b) by the landlord under section 29(2) of this Act, if it is made after the end of the statutory period.
• In this section and section 29B of this Act “the statutory period” means a period ending – (a) where the landlord gave a notice under section 25 of this Act, on the date specified in his notice; and (b) where the tenant made a request for a new tenancy under section 26 of this Act, immediately before the date specified in his request.

There is therefore no discretion for the court to extend the statutory period. If an application is made after that period expires, the Court shall not entertain it.

The Facts

So, what does it mean for an application to be “made” for the purposes of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954? The future of a 1954 Act tenancy may depend on the answer.

In Shaikh and Hoque v Mohammad [2025] EWCC 72, a County Court decision of 28 November 2025, District Judge Rana of Manchester County Court considered that a s.25 notice lodged within the relevant period but later returned by the Court to the Claimant after the expiry of the statutory period was not “brought” within the statutory period. The Court returned the claim form because it was defective in two ways: no court fee had been paid, and an insufficient number of claims form had been provided.

The chronology is pertinent:

• On 26 April 2024, the Defendant landlord served a s.25 notice seeking to terminate the tenancy and opposing renewal on various s.30(1) grounds. The statutory period by which any claim form to renew the tenancy had to be issued was agreed by the Parties to be 1 November 2024.
• On 18 October 2024, two weeks before the statutory period expired, the Claimants’ solicitors lodged a claim to renew the tenancy with the Court.
• The claim form was date-stamped as received on 21 October 2024. However, the claim form read “Court fee not payable”, no payment was tendered, and insufficient copies of the claim form had been filed.
• Therefore, on 2 December 2024 the Court returned the claim form to the Claimants, “unactioned”, by way of letter (take note that this was after the statutory period had expired).
• The Claimants did not refile the papers or pay the correct fee until 17 December 2024. The claim was formally issued on 30 January 2025 and deemed served on the Defendant on 3 February 2025.

Inevitably, the Parties disagreed as to whether the claim had been brought in time, with the Claimants considering that their lodging of the claim before 1 November 2024 was sufficient to show that their application had been “made” within the statutory period. The Defendant nevertheless applied for reverse summary judgment and strike out on the basis that the claim had been issued out of time.

The Decision

There were two issues for the Court to consider:

1. Were the proceedings validly “brought” within the statutory period?
2. If not, could the Court cure this defect via CPR 3.1 or 3.10?

Were the proceedings brought in time?

District Judge Rana began by concisely summarising the relevant case law on what constitutes proceedings being “brought”:

• In Barnes v St Helens [2007] 1 W.L.R. 879, Tuckey LJ held that for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980, proceedings were not brought until both the claim form and the fee were received by the Court.
• In Page v Hewitt (No 1) [2012] EWCA Civ 805, Lewison LJ similarly confirmed that, for the purposes of the Limitation Act 1980, a claimant must do all that is required of them, including payment of the correct fee, for the valid issuing of a claim form.
• In Peterson v Howard [2023] 1 W.L.R. 3057, Eyre J considered that, for the purposes of section 48 of the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, an application is not brought until the correct fee is paid, and CPR 3.10 gives the court no such power to cure such a fundamental defect.

District Judge Rana then went on to dismiss the Claimant’s arguments that a claim, for the purposes of the 1954 Act, was “made” when the initial claim form had been lodged on 18 October 2024:

• It would undermine certainty if defective, fee-less claim forms could operate to suspend limitation indefinitely.
• The Claimants had not done all that they reasonably could do to bring proceedings within the limitation period. They had filed the incorrect number of claim forms and had paid no fee. The present case was not one where the court fee had been inadvertently miscalculated, for example.
• The Claimant’s solicitors “had assumed a considerable and ultimately fatal risk” by leaving the matter to a fortnight before the statutory deadline. The Court could not be criticised for failing to act upon documents that were not in proper form or accompanied by the appropriate fee, and “to hold otherwise would be to transfer responsibility from those who seek to invoke the court’s jurisdiction to the court itself”.
• A Court timestamp is an administrative act evidencing receipt but not evidencing proceedings having been brought.

Was CPR 3.10 applicable?

CPR 3.2(a) permits the court to “extend or shorten the time for compliance with any rule, practice direction or court order (even if an application for extension is made after the time for compliance has expired)”.

CPR 3.10 reads that “where there has been an error of procedure such as a failure to comply with a rule or practice direction (a) the error does not invalidate any step taken in the proceedings unless the court so orders; and (b) the court may make an order to remedy the error”.

The Court gave these arguments short thrift. Applying Peterson, District Judge Rana considered that both rules did not apply to s.29A LTA 1954. Firstly, it was a statute, which did not constitute a “rule, practice direction or court order”. Secondly, CPR 3.10 is subject to the hierarchy of legislative authority and cannot be used to override an express prohibition set out by Parliament.

Conclusion

Shaikh is a County Court decision and therefore not binding, but it continues a long trend of decisions on the definition of ‘making’ or ‘bringing’ an application or claim under various statutes. Subject to any further decisions of County Court, or indeed above, it appears that proceedings under the LTA 1954 are only “brought” so long as the Claimant has complied with all necessary procedural steps, and not when the unsealed claim form is received by the Court.

What lessons can be learnt from this sorry tale?

• Ensure that you pay the relevant court fee, and provide the requisite number of claim forms, when issuing a claim.
• Do not rely upon sympathy from the Court. CPR 3.10 cannot be used to override the express prohibition on late applications as per section 29A, as “to do so would be to extend a statutory limitation period by judicial discretion, contrary to established authority”.
• Comply with all procedural requirements in ample time. The making of an application depends on the claimant doing everything in its power prior to receipt by the Court; there is no guarantee that the Court will flag such errors before it is too late.

Those with more lenient tendencies may consider that lodging a claim form a fortnight prior to the expiry of the limitation period is not worthy of criticism. However, any delays on the Court’s part in both identifying and/or returning documents will not excuse any prior error by a claimant and/or their solicitors.

Nevertheless, court delays grow longer and more frequent. At what point can it fairly be said that a solicitor ‘brought’ or ‘made’ their claim sufficiently far in advance of a limitation period, such that a court’s failure to return those documents and confirm a procedural error until after expiry can excuse that party from the inevitable consequence of their claim being time-barred? A month? Two months? Three?

One suspects the answer will be “never”, since it is incumbent on claimants to ensure that they comply with the procedural requirements of the CPR. The Court does not exist to ‘warn’ litigants of their procedural missteps in sufficient time to remedy them.

These are simple but easy mistakes to make, with dire consequences. The authorities suggest that Courts will have little sympathy. Do not get caught out.

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