Luganda v Service Hotels Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE EDMUND DAVIES,LORD JUSTICE PHILLIMORE |
| Judgment Date | 25 February 1969 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1969] EWCA Civ J0225-1 |
| Date | 25 February 1969 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
Appeal of defendants from Order of Mr. Justice Cross dated February 17th, 1969.
[1969] EWCA Civ J0225-1
The Master of the Rolls (Lord Denning)
Lord Justice Edmund Davies and
Lord Justice Phillimore
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Mr. MONTAGUE WATERS, Q.C., and Mr. MICHAEL BECKMAN (instructed by Messrs. Crape & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Appellant Defendants.
Mr. MICHAEL BECKMAN (instructed by Messrs. D.A. Rose & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Respondent Plaintiff.
Mr. Kasozi Laganda came to this country from Uganda in 1958. He is employed as a clerk in a company in London, but he is also a student. He is reading for the Bar and is going to take his Final Examinations in May. Nearly three years ago he took a furnished room in a building which is known as Queensborough Court Hotel, Queensborough Terrace, W.2. It is called a hotel, but it is very different from an ordinary hotel. It has 88 rooms which are 'let" out to "tenants". But they are not strictly "let", and they are not strictly "tenants". Each "tenant" is really a contractual licensee who has the right to occupy a room in return for a weekly payment. Mr. Luganda has a yale key for his room. It is a bed-sittingroom with a double-ring gas ring. He gets his own meals. He provides his own towel and soap. But the company provide the bedding. The chamber maids come in every day and make his bed and clean the room: and every week they change the liren. Along the corridor there are lavatories and bathrooms which are used by all the occupants. There is, of course, a lift. There is a porter on duty down below: and there is a receptionist who puts telephone messages through to a common telephone on each floor.
Mr. Luganda has been in the same room - No. 53 - for nearly three years. When he went there in April 1966 he paid £4.148.0d. a week. In September 1967 it was raised to £4. 18s.0d. a week. In January of this year, 1969, the management wanted to decorate his room - No. 53. So he went out of No. 53 into No. 4 for a fortnight whilst they redecorated the room. He went back into No. 53 on the 31st January, a Friday. On the next morning, Saturday, 1st February, he received a letter from the manager telling him that his rent was to be increased by a guinea a week. It was in future to be £5. 19s.0d. a week. He did not like this increase in rent. So he went to the Furnished Rent Tribunal and told them about it. They gave him some advice: and, in consequence, on Monday, the 3rd February, Mr. Luganda wrote to the management saying: "I note that you have put up the rent by £1. 1s.0d. a week: I am taking legal advice on this matter, but in the meantime I will continue to pay £4. 18s.0d. as in the past."The management did not like this. They went to their solicitors who wrote a letter which Mr. Luganda got on the Wednesday, the 5th February. They told him that he had to vacate his room by 10 o'clock on the Friday, the 7th. That was only two days' notice. Mr. Luganda did not obey their notice. He did not vacate the premises on the Friday morning. He went to work as usual. When he got back on the Friday evening, he found they had changed the lock. He could not get in. He could not even get his belongings. He had to go and spend the night with a friend nearby. Meanwhile the Furnished Rent Tribunal wrote to him, saying his application to them had been received and would be dealt with as early as possible. They told the management also. The management did not leave room No. 53 empty for very long. They soon let it to a Turkish lady; and they told him he could not come back.
Mr. Luganda applied for an injunction. Mr. Justice Cross held that Mr. Luganda had a prima facie right to remain in possession. He was within the statute which affords protection to the tenants of furnished rooms. The Judge granted an injunction so as to enable him to go back to room 53; and an injunction to prevent there from stopping him having access. Now the company appeal to this Court.
The statutory provisions about furnished lettings were originally contained in the Furnished House (Rent Control) Act 1946, but they have now been consolidated in Part VI of the Rent Act 1968. They were especially designed to cover a letting of furnished rooms, either under a tenancy or a contractual licence. And thus to cover such a case as the present. But Mr. Montague Waters has submitted that they do not cover it. I will take his points in order:-
First, the statute only applies to a contract relating to a "dwelling", see section 70(1)(2): and "dwelling" is defined in section 84 of the 1968 Act as "a house or part of a house". Mr. Waters submitted that this hotel was not a "house". He referred as to a passage in Megarry on the Rent Acts (10th edition) page 50, where it is said that "premises used as a hotel may beprotected if they were constructed as a dwelling-house, but perhaps not if constructed as a hotel". I do not accept this submission. I am quite clear that a building which is used as a hotel is a "house", no matter whether it was purpose built or not. As it happens, the Queensborough Court Hotel was constructed as four houses, but they have been knocked into one so as to form the hotel. It is clearly a "house": and room 53 is "part of a house".
Second, the statute only applies to a contract which gives to the lessee "the right to occupy as a residence" a dwelling, see section 70(1). Mr. Waters submitted that the contract here did not give Mr. Luganda the right to occupy room 53 "as a residence". He referred us again to a passage in Megarry at page 505, where it is said: "The words 'as a residence' have a limiting effect. Thus the Act does not apply to temporary accommodation of the normal hotel type, whether the Ritz or Rowton House, presumably because there is no occupation 'as a residence'." I agree about the Ritz or Rowton House. A person taking a room there on a short visit does not have the right to occupy it "as a residence". Mr. Waters submitted that the contract, to cone within the...
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