EE Limited & Anor v The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Wandsworth

Facts

The appellants, EE Limited and Hutchinson 3G UK Limited, are mobile network operators occupying a telecommunications site on the roof of Castlemaine House in Wandsworth, of which the respondent, the London Borough of Wandsworth, is the freeholder. The old lease had been granted on 27 May 2004 to the first appellant (then T-Mobile (UK) Limited) for a ten-year term from 18 February 2003 and was assigned to the appellants in 2010; it was an agreement under paragraph 2 of the old code and was contracted out of sections 24 to 28 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The contractual term expired in February 2013, but the appellants remained in occupation, paying rent quarterly, requesting the respondent's consent to upgrade works on four occasions and, from December 2018, seeking to open negotiations for a new agreement under the Electronic Communications Code. Rent invoices from 2019 onwards were marked "without prejudice", "lease expired" and "holding over". The appellants served notices under paragraphs 20 and 27 of the Code in March 2024 and made a reference to the First-tier Tribunal. The FTT held that they were periodic tenants with security of tenure, could not use Part 4 of the Code, and had served invalid notices. They appealed all four points with the FTT's permission.