Coventry and others v Lawrence and another (No 2) [2014] UKSC 46, [2014] All ER (D) 226 (Jul)
In respect of the specific issue of landlords’ liability for their tenant’s nuisance, it was not enough for them to be aware of the nuisance and take no steps to prevent it. In order to be liable for authorising a nuisance, the landlords should “either participate directly in the commission of the nuisance, or they must be taken to have authorised it by letting the property”. Further, in considering whether landlords had authorised a nuisance by letting a property from which the tenant had caused the nuisance, the authorities suggested that there had to be a “virtual certainty”, or “a very high degree of probability”, that a letting would result in a nuisance before the landlords could be held liable for the nuisance. Authority to conduct a business was not an authority to conduct it so as to create a nuisance, unless the business could not be conducted without a nuisance. Where landlords were being held liable for their tenant’s nuisance by participating in the nuisance, as a result of acts
