Intro to the law of lease Flashcards
Which case defines a lease contract?
Southernport Developments v Transnet.
What is the definition of a lease contract ito Southernport Development v Transnet?
The essentials of a contract of lease are that there must be an ascertained thing and a fixed rental at which the lessee is to have use and enjoyment of that thing.
What are the essential elements of a lease?
- Agreement on the use and enjoyment of the property.
- Agreement that the use and enjoyment is to be temporary
- Agreement on the rent to be paid.
- Formalities.
Which case holds that the subject matter of the lease is not the property itself, but the use and enjoyment thereof?
Oatorian Properties v Maroun.
Which cases confirm the position that the lessor need not necessarily be the owner to enter into a valid lease contract?
- Salisbury Gold Mining Co v Klipriviersberg Estate & Gold Mining Co
- Clarke v Nourse Mines
- Mighty Solutions v Engen
What is the leased thing?
- Any corporeal movable or immovable
- Let wholly or partially
- Must be identified or identifiable
Can an incorporeal be leased?
No.
What is the nature of “use and enjoyment”?
It is the right to use, to collect fruits but not to consume/destroy.
What cases are authorities on the nature of use and enjoyment?
- Neebe v Registrar of Mining Rights
- Bozzone v SIR
What is the exception to the standard rule that rent must sound in money?
The lease of agricultural land, the rent may consist in a quantity or agreed proportion of the fruits of the property. (Partiarian agricultural lease)
What is the standard rule regarding rent?
It must sound in money.
What is the case for partiarian agricultural lease?
Proud Investments v Lanchem International.
What is an agreement that is not a reciprocal lease contract?
A unilateral/gratuitous contract of precarium or commodatum.
What are the ways in which the rental to be paid can be determined in terms of the requirement for ‘Agreement on the rent to be paid’?
- Must be determined or determinable
- Standard acceptable formulae
- Nominal rental- depending on intention
- Third parties determining the amount
- A reasonable rental
- A bracketed amount
What is the holding in Oatorian Properties v Maroun?
- Agreement to the intended use of the property constitutes a material term of the agreement
- It is an essential of a lease contract that there be use and enjoyment of a thing during the duration of the lease and that constitutes the substance and subject of the contract
- The kind of enjoyment which is conferred by the lease either is or is not stated in the contract. When it is stated, the lessee may not put the thing to a use other than to that stated in the lease.
Which principle does the case of Clarke v Nourse Mines confirm?
The principle of estoppel by agreement or contract.
What is the principle of estoppel by agreement or contract?
- The principle is, that if it is agreed that one shall be tenant to the other, both are estopped from disputing the other’s title as landlord.
- The real foundation of the estoppel is the fact of the one obtaining possession and enjoying the possession by the permission of the other. And so long as the one has this enjoyment, he is prevented by the rule of law from turning round and saying his landlord had no right or title to put him in possession.
According to Judge Solomons in Clarke v Nourse Mines, what are the two grounds that the doctrine rests on?
- The lessor having performed his part of the contract, and having placed the lessee in undisturbed possession of the property, is entitled to claim that the lessee should also perform his part of the contract and should pay him the rent which he agreed to pay for the use and enjoyment of the premises.
- The lessee having had the undisturbed enjoyment of the premises under the lease, and having thus had all for which he contracted, it would be against good faith for him to set up the case that the lessor had no right to let him the property.
What are the facts of Salisbury Gold Mining v Klipriviersberg Estate?
It was an action to set aside a lease on the ground that the lessor was not the owner of the leased property.
What did the court hold in Salisbury Gold Mining v Klipriviersberg Estate?
A lessee who had undisturbed enjoyment of the property could not question the title of his lessor.
What did the court hold in Oatorian Properties v Maroun?
- Use and enjoyment of the thing is essential to a lease contract, it forms the subject and substance of the lease contract
- If the kind of enjoyment conferred by the lease is stated, the lessee may not put the thing to a use other than to that stated in the lease.
What are the facts of Salisbury Gold Mining v Klipriviersberg Estate?
- Salisbury hired for 50 years a piece of land with a natural pool of water
- At the time of entering the lease, both parties were under the bona fide impression that the portion of land leased had been kept out or reserved by the lessor as owner of the land and so it did not come under the proclamation of the farm as a public goldfield
- Lessee was informed that the leased land fell within the proclaimed portion of the farm.
- Lessee applied for water rights from the Gov because it feared disturbance of its peaceful possession.
What is the holding of Salisbury Gold Mining v Klipriviersberg Estate?
Any person can let to another something which belongs to a 3rd party, and it is not open to the lessee to raise the defence that they have discovered that the lessor had no right to enter into a lease contract with them or that the property leased belongs to another person.
What are the facts of Mighty Solutions v Engen?
Engen sublet the petrol station premises to Might Solutions which thereafter operated an Engen Service Station there. After main lease ended, Mighty Solutions continued to operate a service station from the premises using Engen’s signage and equipment.
What was the holding of Mighty Solutions v Engen?
Common law rule that a lessee cannot dispute lessor’s title does not offend section 39(2) ie., passes constitutional muster.
What are the facts of Neebe v Registrar of Mining Rights?
- Neebe applied to pass transfer of certain prospecting claims upon which licence money had been paid up to a purchaser, without production of any receipt for licence monies for any period after Oct 1899 (Anglo Boer broke out the next day)
- As a result, Neebe did not have beneficial occupation of the claims
- Licence money between Sept and Oct 1899 were tendered
- Neebe sought remission of rental
What is the principle applied in Neebe v Registrar of Mining Rights?
Lease confers right to use of the land, therefore:
- Lessee is obliged to preserve the land and restore it uninjured at the time of the lease (no right to destroy and appropriate substance of the thing hired)
- Right to enjoy the benefit of its use and to take its fruits.
What are the facts of Bozzone v SIR?
- Bozzone entered into a contract whereunder they were accorded the right to occupy a certain plot of land belonging to the council and the right to ‘dig, work and obtain stone, gravel and sand and other like materials.’
- Contract was described as a lease for 20 years
- Consideration was monthly rental and certain royalties.
What principle was applied in Bozzone v SIR?
A true lease confers on the lessee the right to enjoyment of another’s property without destroying its substance (ius fruendi) but not ius abutendi (right to consume or use up the subject-matter of the contract).
What did the court hold in Proud Investments v Lanchem International?
An essential element of a lease contract of things is that the rent agreed upon by the parties should be fixed in a definite amount or be determinable by a 3rd party in accordance with the maxim: if something is capable of being made certain, it should be treated as certain.
What did the court hold in Jordaan v Verwey?
- Practical considerations are decisive
- Difference between lease agreements and other agreements relating to use and enjoyment of IP lies in the rule relating to the nature of consideration payable
- Rule is still part of our law because to hold otherwise would be contrary to public policy that they should find themselves in a position different from that which they thought they had agreed to.