Cases - Mancetter Developments Ltd v Garmonson and Givertz
Record details
- Name
- Mancetter Developments Ltd v Garmonson and Givertz
- Date
- [1986]; [1986]
- Citation
- 1 AII ER 449; 1 EGLR 240, CA
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Commercial property - property management - dilapidations - removing fixtures - waste - liability
- Summary
-
The person removing the fixtures is likely to commit waste if he or she does not make good thereafter. In waste the liability to make good will be that of the person removing the fixtures and not that of the tenant who originally installed them.
The liability to make good the damage, or to repair the injury the property may sustain by the act of removal of tenant’s fixtures, must, in so far as it is a liability at common law and not under a contract, be the liability of the person who removes the fixtures, and not of the person, if different, who originally installed the fixtures and left them there. The liability to make good the damage is a condition of the tenant’s right to remove tenant’s fixtures. Therefore, removal of the fixtures without making good the damage, being in excess of the tenant’s right of removal, is waste, actionable in tort, just as much as removal by the tenant of a landlord’s fixture, which the tenant has no right to remove, is waste. The filling of screw holes or nail holes where a fixture is removed which has been screwed or nailed to a wall may be a matter de minimis. But the leaving of holes, such as those in question in this case, affected the structure and was not a matter of mere decoration.