Cases - Frances Holland School v Wassef
Record details
- Name
- Frances Holland School v Wassef
- Date
- [2001]
- Citation
- 2 EGLR 88
- Legislation
- Keywords
- Party walls – Rent Act – statutory tenants are not owners – London Building Act
- Summary
-
Mr and Mrs Wassef were statutory tenants, for the purposes of the Rent Act 1977, of premises which adjoined the school's premises. The school wanted to construct a new building, access to which required the demolition of a building that adjoined Mr and Mrs Wassef's premises.
The judge decided that Mr and Mrs Wassef were not adjoining owners (under a similar provision of the 1939 Act). He decided that owners who were tenants were limited to those who held legal interests in land of a duration greater than 1 year and did not include statutory tenants.
In addition, each party to the dispute had appointed a surveyor under the 1939 Act to resolve a dispute about the proposed works. Resolution of various disputes was not achieved over a long period of time. The adjoining owner's surveyor considered that the other surveyor was refusing or neglecting to act. He therefore sent a letter in which he gave 10 days' notice that he would act ex parte. The building owner's surveyor wrote 2 letters in reply but the adjoining owner's surveyor proceeded to make an ex parte award.
The judge held that there was no evidence of a refusal or a neglect to act. The judge expressed the view that any surveyor who wished to use the ex parte procedure must comply strictly with the formalities of the Act. He considered that the ex parte award, to be valid, should have set out accurately the grounds on which the surveyor was acting ex parte. The award in this case did not do so. The judge decided that the award was invalid.
This case was decided under the 1939 Act in which refusals or neglects to act were not qualified by the word 'effectively'. However, it is considered that the result would have been the same under the 1996 Act.