House at Clapton, London–Four days before hearing, landlord council accepts tenants’ unconditional offer made some nine weeks earlier–Amount £10 less than ‘without prejudice’ offer made by council 12 months previously–Council awarded costs to date of unconditional offer and to pay tenants’ costs thereafter
Giving his
decision, MR STRATHON said: This case concerns the price which Mr and Mrs D
Addison, the tenants, should pay for the freehold interest in the house 7
Millfields Road, Clapton, London E5, under the provisions of the Leasehold
Reform Act 1967 as amended.
The tenants
served notice of their desire to have the freehold on October 16 1973 and the
landlords, the London Borough of Hackney, admitted the right of the tenants to
purchase on December 20 1973.
I sat in
London on April 15 1975. When this case was called I was told that I should not
be troubled with the question of the amount of the purchase price, since the
landlords had on April 11 1975 accepted an unconditional offer of £750 made by
the tenants on February 4 1975.
Mr David Mole,
of counsel (instructed by M Wernick & Co), for the tenants, submitted that
the landlords should pay the costs of the tenants after February 4 1975. But Mr
D Martineau, of counsel, for the landlords, submitted that had the tenants
accepted an offer of £760 made by the landlords on February 14 1974, the
reference to the Lands Tribunal in October 1974 would have been unnecessary. Mr
Martineau, accepting that the offer was in a ‘without prejudice’ letter by the
borough valuer in the form that he would be prepared to recommend such a
purchase price to the council, submitted that the balance of probabilities was
that the council would have accepted such a recommendation.
In all the
circumstances of the present case I decide, in the exercise of my discretion,
that I should make an order as to costs in the following terms: the tenants
will pay the landlords their costs of the reference up to and including
February 4 1975 and the landlords will pay the costs of the tenants as from
February 4 1975, such costs not to include the presence of the tenants’
surveyor at the hearing. The costs unless agreed are to be taxed by the
Registrar of the Lands Tribunal on Scale 4 of the County Court Scales of Costs.
