Greaves v Grant

• Jurisdiction: Barbados
• Court: Divisional Court (Barbados)
• Judge: Hanschell, J.,Ward, J.
• Judgment Date: 26 January 1973
• Docket Number: No. 45 of 1969
• Date: 26 January 1973

Divisional Court

Hanschell, J.; Ward, J.

No. 45 of 1969

Greaves

and

Grant

Appearances:

Mr. W.H. Hanschell Q.C. for the appellant.

Mr. H.B. St John, Q.C. for the respondent.

Real Property - Landlord and Tenant — Tenancy

Facts: This was an appeal from a decision of a magistrate in which he dismissed the complaint of the appellant — The appellant had claimed that the respondent was her tenant of a house and that she had terminated the tenancy by notice and sought the magistrate's warrant to eject the respondent — The issue was whether the relationship between the parties was that of landlord and tenant or licensor and licensee

Held: On the evidence before the magistrate he could properly hold as he did that there was no intention to create a tenancy — Appeal dismissed.

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT:

1 This is an appeal from the magistrate, District “A” in a case under the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1897-3 section 35.

2 The appellant in her complaint before the magistrate claimed that the respondent was her tenant of a house and land at Black Rock in the parish of St. Michael, that she had terminated the tenancy by notice and sought the magistrate's warrant to eject the respondent. The magistrate dismissed the complaint.

3 The appellant has appealed on two grounds, namely, that the decision is against the weight of evidence and secondly, that the decision is erroneous in point of law. In his statement of reasons for the decision the magistrate has set out the facts, which he found under, six heads. On behalf of the appellant the facts headed No. 2 and No. 5 are in dispute.

4 Under head No. 2 the magistrate found that “the defendant used to assist the complainant with the land rent on which this house stood from time to time.”

5 Under head No. 5 the magistrate found that “the defendant paid the carpenter every week for the work he did and the carpenter gave him receipts totalling about $305.00. The defendant installed water and electricity and paid for these services.”

6 It is not disputed that the complainant and the defendant are brother and sister; that they lived together in a house then belonging to the complainant on land rented by the complainant up to 1957 when the complainant left the defendant in the house and went to live elsewhere.

7 It is not disputed that in 1966 the complainant and the defendant made arrangements with a carpenter and that as a result the carpenter built a new house, demolished the old one and with some of the old lumber from the old house together with new material constructed a shed which was then attached to the new house he had built, and that it was occupied by the defendant on the same land.

8 That the notices to quit these premises were served by the complainant on the defendant in 1968 is not disputed.

9 There is no suggestion anywhere in the evidence that the defendant, now respondent, was a tenant at any time before the complainant-appellant moved away from the house in 1957. Up to that time this brother and sister lived together in the sister's house. It is the complainant's case that from the time she moved away the defendant became her tenant at $2.50 per week and remained...