Chung Kwok Hotel Company Ltd v Field
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE HODSON,LORD JUSTICE HARMAN |
| Judgment Date | 15 July 1960 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1960] EWCA Civ J0715-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 15 July 1960 |
[1960] EWCA Civ J0715-1
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Lord Justice Hodson
Lord Justice Orherod and
Lord Justice Harman
Mr. P.A.W. MERRITON (instructed by Messrs. Beach & Beach, London, N.W.6) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Defendant).
MR. ROBIN DUNN (instructed by Messrs. Cliftons) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Plaintiffs).
I will ask Lord Justice Harman to deliver the first judgment.
In the year 1950 a Mrs. Silvester was the freeholder of No. 24 Inverness Terrace, Lancaster Gate. The appellant on this issue, Louis Kenneth Field, was in occupation of the first floor of that house. He had been a tenant for a good many years originally under a written agreement for a year and had held over and become a statutory tenant. In the year 1957 Mrs. Silvester brought an action for possession against him on grounds connected with the terms of his written tenancy, which of course applied to a statutory tenancy so far as might be. She did not get on very well with that action, but it became clear to the parties that, whether that succeeded or no, there would come a time in fact it arrived in 1950 when, under the Rent Restrictions Act, 1957, the statutory protection would cease to apply to Mr. Field and he would have to quit on six months' notice. He was served with such a notice in fact, and put in as part of his defence in the action that, having been served with such a notice, he was a statutory tenant until the notice expired. In February, 1959, an order was made by consent under which Field consented to give possession to Mrs. Silvester on the 1st September, 1959, and she agreed to pay all his costs of the action, and of a counterclaim, on Scale 4. Her object in bringing the action was to get possession of the property with a view to selling it to good advantage, as indeed she easily could, and did; and between February and July, 1959, the property changed hands three times, ending with the respondents, Chung Kwok Hotel Company Limited.
In the contract under which Mrs. Silvester agreed to part with her interest, to two gentlemen whose names do not matter, it was provided as one of the conditions of sale, Special Condition No. 5, that the property was sold subject to and with the benefit of Field's tenancy and subject to and with the benefit of the consent order which I have mentioned. Those purchasers never completed, but sold the benefit of their contract to a Mr. Chan, who in fact apparently bought with the intention of making the property over to a company, then unformed, which I take to be the respondent company. After taking an assignment of the contract, he declared himself a trustee for the company and entered that document on the register: thereafter (in July, I think) he made a registered transfer in favour of the company.
Mr. Chan, being the inheritor of the benefit of the contract with Mrs. Silvester, may, I think, and probably does have a right against her to call upon her to do what was necessary to enforce her judgment; but very unfortunately he omitted to transfer that right to the plaintiff company, merely executing in their favour a common form registered transfer. Consequently, so far as I can see, the company has not the benefit of the covenant with Mrs. Silvester that it was so desirable they should have. It may possibly be that they can call upon Mr. Chan to exercise his rights against her, but they have not ever purported to do so.
In August, 1959, the time was drawing near when the defendant had agreed to vacate the property. He was not the sort of person who would propose to keep his word if he could get out of it, and he made an application of a very strange sort to the County Court to vacate the judgment on the ground that Mrs. Silvester no longer had any interest in the property. The County Court Judge had no hesitation in saying that that was nonsense; and Counsel for the appellant very candidly appears here and he agrees that it was nonsense; but it had this result, that the attention of the judge was drawn by Counsel to...
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