Patrick Bracher | Partner | Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa | mail me |
Because agreement on the rent is an essential element of a lease, until such agreement has been reached no lease is concluded.
Unless all the essential terms are agreed upon, expressly or by implication, there is no contract at all.
Our law has long accepted that the parties to a contract can delegate the responsibility for fixing certain terms to a third party. Seeing there was no agreed nor determined rent, the lease terminated by effluxion of time and the clause relating to the renewal agreement did not survive and could no longer be used by the lessee.
The court declared that the lease was terminated and ordered that the tenant must vacate the property within two months of the date of the order.
As is so often the case, by reason of the slow litigation process through two courts, the tenant bought itself a further six years of occupation.
The case is Sontsele v 140 Main Street Properties CC.
