swarb.co.uk - law index
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Housing - From: 1800 To: 1849
This page lists 2 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.
Smith v Marrable, Knt [1842] EngR 1137; (1842) Car & M 479; (1842) 174 ER 598
3 Dec 1842
Housing, Landlord and Tenant
If premises be let for the purposes of occupation, it is on an implied condition that they should be fit for occupation.
1 Citers
[ Commonlii ]
Smith v Marrable (1843) 11 M&W 5; (1843) Car & M 479; (1843) LJ Ex 223; (1843) 7 Jur 70; (1843) ER 693
1843
Parke B, Lord Abinger CB
Landlord and Tenant, Housing
Premises were let furnished with the tenant paying a weekly rent of eight guineas. The tenant complained that the premises were unfit, being infested with bugs, and left. The landlord sued for his rent. Held: As an exception to the general rule against implied terms for repair in tenancy contracts, there is an implied covenant of fitness for habitation in a letting of a furnished house. Also a contract of tenancy may be repudiated by a breach of such a condition, and it is not to be held against the tenant that he has endured the breach for longer than he needed to.
Lord Abinger CB said: "in point of law every house must be taken to be let upon the implied condition that there was nothing about it so noxious as to render it uninhabitable." and "I entertain no doubt whatever on the subject, and think the defendant was fully justified in leaving these premises as he did: indeed, I only wonder that he remained so long, and gave the landlord so much opportunity of remedying the evil."
Parke B said that premises were unfit for human habitation: "if the demised premises are incumbered with a nuisance of so serious a nature that no person can reasonably be expected to live in them." and "These authorities appear to me fully to warrant the position, that if the demised premises are incumbered with a nuisance of so serious a nature that no person can reasonably be expected to live in them, the tenant is at liberty to throw them up."
1 Cites
1 Citers