An Isle of Wight tenant who had converted a loft space above his flat without consent has successfully challenged an order that he should pay his landlord damages for trespass.
Aynsley Munt has won Court of Appeal backing for his claim that the loft was intended to be included in his lease of the flat, after being ordered by a county court judge to pay £9,000 in damages to landlord Richard Beasley.
The court accepted that it was “extremely improbable” that Beasley, who lived on the ground floor of the two-story house in Hilton Road, Gurnard, had intended to retain possession of a loft that was accessible only through the first-floor flat.
It ruled that the lease should be rectified to include the loft, and reduced the damages award to £1,250 to compensate Beasley solely for noise nuisance during the conversion works.
Munt, who has spent £40,000 defending the trespass action brought by publicly funded Beasley, carried out the conversion between 1999 and 2003. The works included the construction of a staircase from the landing of his flat into the loft.
He claimed that he had taken the lease of the flat on the basis that it included the loft. Two previous tenants also gave evidence that they had believed that the loft was included in the lease, and said they had used the space for storage.
However, the county court recorder ruled that the loft was excluded from the lease, and that Munt had failed to establish a case for rectification and was liable in trespass. He said that the tenant could avoid forfeiture of the lease only by paying damages.
Quashing that ruling, Mummery LJ said that “the language of the lease” supported Beasley but that “common sense” supported Munt.
He held that although the recorder had been legally correct in holding that the lease did not include the loft, it was “unconscionable” for Beasley to leave it until early 2003 to assert that the conversion and use of the loft was a trespass.
He said that, regardless of the terms of the lease, Beasley, through his words and conduct, had acquiesced to Munt’s use of the loft, and the latter had relied upon that acquiescence to his detriment in undertaking the works.
Munt v Beasley Court of Appeal (Mummery and Scott Baker LJJ and Sir Charles Mantell) 4 April 2006.
Timothy Morshead (instructed by Gurney-Champion & Co, of Newport) appeared for the appellant; Jeremy Garrood (instructed by Robinson Jarvis Rolf, of Newport) appeared for the respondent.
References: EGi Legal News 04/04/06
