Alterations to leased guest-house

During the currency of the lease period of a guest-house, the tenant carried out some alterations to improve its condition and make it more luxurious. Some alterations were structural while others could very easily be removed.

Now that the lease is about to expire, the landlord carried out an inspection of the premises and ordered the tenant to ensure that he restores the guest-house back to its original state before vacating it.

What is the tenant's position at law?

The parties to the lease must first refer to any existing agreement they may have since it would probably provide for improvements to the premises.

The Civil Code provides that the tenant may not, during the course of the lease, make any alterations without the consent of the lessor, and he is not entitled to claim the value, whatever it may be, of any improvement made without such consent.

Therefore, it is in the tenant's interest to ensure that before carrying out any changes or improvements to the premises, he obtains the landlord's consent.

If the landlord continued to accept the rent following his knowledge of the alterations made in the tenement, he may be deemed to have tacitly accepted the alterations and thus renounced any right competent to him in terms of the law against the tenant.

Local jurisprudence has on many occasions allowed the tenant to carry out alterations in the thing let even though no prior consent from the landlord was obtained, provided that such alterations were minor, did not frustrate the nature and destination of the thing let, were necessary and useful for the enjoyment of the thing and could be easily removed at the termination of the lease, thus restoring the tenement back to its original state.

The tenant, at the termination of the lease, would be obliged to remove any structural alterations he may have carried out, and restore the premises to its original state.

At the termination of the lease, the tenant is obliged to restore the tenement back in the same condition as it was originally granted to him by the landlord. Any action for restoring any alterations not permitted by law and jurisprudence are time-barred by five years from the date that landlord became aware of the alterations.

With regard to the improvements made by the tenant to the guest-house, the law provides that the tenant may, remove such improvements, restoring the guest-house to the state in which it was before they were made, provided, as regards improvements existing at the termination of the lease, he shows that he can obtain some profit by taking them away, and provided the lessor does not choose to keep them and pay to the tenant a sum equal to the profit which, by taking them away, the latter would obtain.

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