(1)Where a person serves a notice under section 2 in respect of a lease which is not held immediately of the owner of the fee simple in the land comprised in the lease, the rights and duties of the lessor under this Act shall, in so far as their estates in the land are affected, be the rights and duties respectively of the lessor and every superior lessor, and for the purpose of carrying on any proceedings for the purposes of this Act, the lessor and all of the superior lessors shall be represented by one only of them, in this section referred to as “the reversioner” , and the lessors other than the reversioner are referred to as “the other lessors” .
(2)Where there is a lease reversionary on a lease in respect of which a person serves a notice under section 2, then (except in so far as special provision is made for such a reversionary lease) this section shall have effect as if the reversionary lease were a concurrent lease intermediate between the lease of the lessee in possession and any estate superior to that last-mentioned lease.
(3)In default of agreement between the lessors, the reversioner shall be the immediate lessor if the estate of that lessor has an expectation in possession of thirty years or more, and if that estate has not such an expectation, the reversioner shall be the next superior lessor whose estate has such an expectation, and if he acts in good faith and with reasonable care and diligence, the reversioner shall not be liable to any of the other lessors for any loss or damage caused by any act or omission in the exercise or intended exercise of his functions under this section.
(4)Notwithstanding anything in subsection (1), any of the other lessors shall be entitled, if he so desires, to be separately represented in any proceedings in which his title to any property comes in question, or in any proceedings relating to the price payable for the land under section 14.
(5)For the purpose of deducing, evidencing or verifying his title to any property, any of the other lessors, on giving written notice to the reversioner and to the lessee, may deal directly with the lessee, if he objects to disclosing his title to the reversioner, and he shall deal directly with the lessee if the lessee by written notice given to him and to the reversioner so requires.
(6)For the purpose of agreeing the price payable for his estate under section 14, any of the other lessors, on giving written notice to the reversioner and to the lessee, may deal directly with the lessee; and whether he does that or not, he may require the reversioner to apply to the Lands Tribunal for the price to be determined by the Lands Tribunal.
(7)Any of the other lessors shall be entitled to require that the price payable for his estate (or so much of it as is payable to him) shall be paid by the lessee to him or to a person authorised by him to receive it, instead of to the reversioner; but if, after being given proper notice of the time and place fixed for completion with the lessee, neither he nor a person so authorised attends to receive payment, and he has not made, and notified the reversioner of other arrangements with the claimant to receive payment, the reversioner shall be authorised to receive it for him and the reversioner's written receipt for the amount payable shall be a complete discharge to the lessee.
(8)It shall be the duty of each of the other lessors—
(a)subject to subsections (5) and (6), to give the reversioner all such information and assistance as he may reasonably require; and
(b)after being given proper notice of the time and place fixed for completion with the lessee (if the lessee is acquiring the fee simple), to ensure that all deeds and other documents that ought on his part to be delivered to the lessee on completion are available for the purpose of perfecting the lessee's title;
and, if any of the other lessors fail to do so, he shall indemnify the reversioner against any liability incurred by the reversioner in consequence of the failure.
(9)Each of the other lessors shall make such contribution as may be just to the costs and expenses incurred by the reversioner and not recoverable or not recovered from the lessee.
(10)The authority given by this section to the reversioner shall not extend to the bringing of proceedings under section 19 on behalf of any of the other lessors, or preclude any of the other lessors from bringing proceedings under that section on his own behalf; and (without prejudice to subsection (2)) a person entitled to a lease reversionary on the lease in possession may make an application under section 19 as lessor.
(11)Where a conveyance of the fee simple is executed for the purposes of this Act—
(a)a separate price shall be payable in accordance with section 14 for each of the estates superior to the lease in possession, and that section shall apply to the computation of that price with such modifications as are appropriate to relate it to a sale of the estate in question subject to any estates intermediate between that estate and the lease in possession, together with lessee's incumbrances relative to those estates; and
(b)section 16 shall apply separately to the price payable for each estate.
(12)For purposes of this section and section 17 the expectation of possession carried by a lease is the expectation which it carries of possession after the lease in possession at the date on which notice under section 2 is served, on the basis that—
(a)the lease in possession terminates at that date if its term date fell before then, or else terminates at its term date or (in the case of a lease which has been extended) its original term date; and
(b)a lease other than the lease in possession terminates at its term date, so, however, that where before the date on which the notice is served under section 2 the immediate lessor had given to the lessee in possession notice to quit terminating the lease at a date earlier than the term date, the date specified in the notice to quit shall be substituted for the date in paragraph ( a).
F1functions transf. 1982 NI 6