recovery of unpaid rent, it was argued by the defendants that the lease was frustrated. The House of Lords held that, in principle, the doctrine of frustration was applicable to leases, but that in the circumstances, given the likely length of continuance of the lease, there was no triable issue as to the applicability of the doctrine of frustration: National Carriers Ltd v Panalpina (Northern) Ltd [1981] AC 675, HL, p 688

Is there anything in principle which ought to prevent a lease from ever being frustrated? I think there is not. In favour of the opposite opinion, the difference in principle between real and chattel property was strongly urged. But I find it difficult to accept this, once it has been decided, as has long been the case, that time and demise charters even of the largest ships and of considerable duration can in principle be frustrated. This was sufficiently well established by 1943 to make these charters worthy of an express exception upon an exception in s 2(5) of the Law Reform (Frustrated Contracts) Act 1943 and, since then, the Suez cases have supervened. There would be something anomalous in the light of what has been going on recently in the Shatt al Arab to draw a distinction between a leased oil tank and a demise – chartered oil tanker. Other anomalies would follow if the absolute principle were to be applied to leases. Goff J appears to have found difficulty in applying frustration to an agreement for a lease (which creates an equitable estate in the land capable of being specifically enforced and thereby converted into a legal estate operating as from the beginning of the equitable interest): see Rom Securities Ltd v Rogers (Holdings) Ltd (1967) 205 EG 427. Personally, I find the absurdities postulated by Megarry and Wade, The Law of Real Property, 4th edn, in the case of the destruction by fire of the upper flat of a tenement building unacceptable if the ‘never’ doctrine were rigidly applied, and I am attracted by Professor Treitel’s argument (at p 669 of the current edition of his work on contracts, The Law of Contract, 5th edn) of the inequitable contrast between a contract for the provision of holiday accommodation which amounted to a licence, and was thus, subject to the rule in Taylor v Caldwell (1863) 3 B & S 826, and a similar contract amounting to a short lease. Clearly, the contrast would be accentuated if Goff J’s view be accepted as to the applicability of the doctrine to agreements for a lease.