Possession of flat — Agreement of landlords to hire furniture and let flat as furnished ‘not bona fide’ — Appeal dismissed
The Court dismissed this appeal by the plaintiff
company, of High Street, Esher, from the order of Judge Leon at Windsor County
Court on May 24 last, refusing to grant them possession of No 19 Flat, River
Court, Taplow, occupied by Mr Edmund Anthony Edwards, respondent to the appeal.
The appellants alleged that the flat was let to Mr
Edwards furnished. Their grounds of appeal included the following: That the
Judge wrongly held that Mr Edwards did not represent to them that the furniture
included in the letting was owned by his wife; that Mr Edwards was not estopped
from alleging that the furniture was his wife’s, and that the Judge was also
wrong in deciding that the transaction by which the appellants hired furniture
from Mrs Edwards and agreed to let the flat with this furniture to Mr Edwards
was merely colourable and not a bona fide transaction.
Mr JDF Moylan (instructed by Cartwright,
Cunningham & Co) appeared for the appellants; Mr EW Eveleigh (instructed by
Bracewell and Leaver, agents for Mr Wm J Wade, of Slough) represented the
respondent.
Giving judgment, Lord Justice Jenkins said this
was a case where the appellants by agreement purported to hire furniture in the
flat from Mrs Edwards and then agreed to let the flat so furnished to Mr
Edwards. The result was that Mr and Mrs Edwards remained in the flat, Mrs
Edwards receiving the amount of that hire, while Mr Edwards paid the rent.
According to the Judge’s findings the appellants were only concerned to get
some sort of title on paper to the furniture already in the flat in order that
they might include that furniture in the letting and then claim that a
substantial portion of the rent was attributable to the furniture. He also
found that the furniture belonged to Mr Edwards, and that the appellants did
not believe that it belonged to Mrs Edwards; that, in fact, they did not mind
to whom it belonged so long as Mrs Edwards signed the agreement. On that, said
his Lordship, it seemed to him that the conclusion was quite irresistible that
this was a colourable transaction, a transaction that could not be described as
bona fide. It was a transaction devised to make it appear that the tenant was
paying the rent of a furnished flat. There was no ground for disturbing the
Judge’s findings, and the appeal should be dismissed.
The Master of the Rolls (Sir Raymond Evershed) and
Lord Justice Singleton agreed.
