WAIKINO LEASE CASE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5112, 8 April 1927, Page 4

WAIKINO LEASE CASE.

COURT PROCEEDINGS CONCLUDED.

PLAIN T IFF NON-SU IT E D.

Written judgment was given by Mr F. W. Platts, S.M., at the Paeioa Magistrate’s Court on Monday last in the case in which Martin Rohan (Mr E. W. Porritt), fanner, Waikino, proceeded against Thomas Walters, Waihi, and Thomas George Ayers (Mr E. J. Clendon and Mr J. Clark), claiming a total of £2OO damages for alleged breaches of covenants in the lease of a farm at Waikino.

In his judgment the magistrate said :— “This is a claim for £2OO damages for failure to comply with the covenants of a lease. The defendants became tenants of plaintiff’s farm near Paeroa, under a 15 years’ lease, in November, 1921. They remained i ll possession for five years, when they transferred the lease to Gerald Knowles. The consent of the plaintiff was given to the transfer with a proviso on these words, “but without prejudice within 12 months to any right of action against the transferors for any breach of the covenants or conditions that may be found to have occurred prior to the date of this transfer.’ The lease contains tne usual farming covenants on the part of the tenants. The plaintiff alleges that the defendants failed to comply with these covenants. “The farm is an old one situated in rough country that is seriously infested with blackberry and gorse. The original buildings and fences are falling to pieces in old age. It is admitted that the place was in a backward and neglected condition when defendants entered.

“The plaintiff’s case is unsatisfactory in this respect that the witnesses he calls give only a lukewarm support to his claim and to his evidence. The statement of claim credits the defendants with clearing only five acres during the period of their tenancy. Against this there is a compact body of unshaken evidence that the area cleared by the defendants was about 25 acres —their full requirement under the lease. Nor is the planitiff’s case any stronger as regards the other items o ? his claim, based upon the alleged failure of defendants to keep the buildings and fences in repair, and to clear the gorse and blackberry to. the satisfaction of the inspector under the Noxious Weeds Act, 1908. “It is admitted that the defendants, although under no obligation to do so, renovated and modernised the dwellinghouse on the farm, and built an efficient cowshed, with concrete floor, etc., at a cost for both works of over £lOO, towards which plaintiff’s only contribution was the remission of one month’s rent, £4 Ils. “The plaintiff says, in the course N liis evidence ‘The defendants did a good bit the first and second years, but after that nothing,” and lie professes to detail, year by year, their flagrant failure to carry out the terms of the lease. At the time they left, he says, no covenants had been carried out. Indeed, he had come to tiie conclusion, about the third year, that defendants had no, intention of complying with the lease ; nevertheless (and he admits this), during the whole period of their tenancy, although he was frequently over the farm, and was, as a rule, present every month when defendants paid the rent, he never once complained that defendants were not fulfilling the terms of their lease, and when he consented to the transfer to Knowles he did so with a proviso that reserved to him the right of action against defendants for any breach of covenant on their part that might be discovered within the following twelve months.

“The plaintiff has failed to establish his claim. He will be non-suited with costs amounting to £25 14s I’d.”