Hillview Properties (Pty) Ltd v Strijdom and Another

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Citation: 1978 (1) SA 302 (T)

Hillview Properties (Pty) Ltd v Strijdom and Another
1978 (1) SA 302 (T)

1978 (1) SA p302

Citation	1978 (1) SA 302 (T)
Court	Transvaal Provincial Division
Judge	Hiemstra J
Heard	November 21, 1974; November 22, 1974
Judgment	December 4, 1974

Flynote : Sleutelwoorde E

Contract — Validity of — Company prematurely and bona fide using a name it intends to adopt — In absence of fraud such a valid contract.

Company — Contracts by — Company prematurely and bona fide using a name it intends to adopt — In absence of fraud such a valid contract. F

Headnote : Kopnota

A contract in which a company prematurely and bona fide uses a name which it intends to adopt is, in the absence of fraud, a valid contract.

Case Information

Application for ejectment. The facts appear from the reasons for judgment.

N. S. Page, for the applicant. G

I. W. B. de Villiers, S.C. (with him J. L. van der Merwe), for the respondents.

Cur adv vult.

Postea (December 4). H

Judgment

Hiemstra, J.:

The appellant company is the owner of Stand 222 Marshalltown, on which is situated the Gresham Hotel. There is in existence a deed of lease concluded between the applicant company and Finlandia Hotels (Pty.) Ltd., a private company conducting an hotel business in the building. The applicant seeks ejectment of the tenant and cites as respondent one Petrus Johannes Mattheus Strijdom. The company

1978 (1) SA p303

Hiemstra J

Finlandia Hotels was not cited. The reasons therefor will soon become apparent.

The respondent advanced as a first defence that he is protected by sec. A 121 of the Liquor Act, 30 of 1928, which requires six months' notice to be given to a tenant who is the holder of a liquor licence. This point was conceded and the applicant relied solely on an alternative cause of action, namely that the lease was a nullity in law. This argument rested on an allegation that there was no such company on the register as Finlandia Hotels (Pty.) Ltd. at the date of the lease, which was 18 July B 1974. For that reason the manager, Strijdom, was personally cited as respondent.

It appears that the relevant company, of which Strijdom is a director, is not Finlandia but Roybent (Pty.) Ltd. A special resolution was taken by Roybent on 6 February 1974 that application would be made for a change of name. The Registrar of Companies on 18 February notified Roybent that the C new name had been reserved for two months. Because of various administrative ineptitudes the application was not pursued, but the board of Roybent began using the name Finlandia. That was done when the present lease was entered into on 28 July, and also in a large number of other contracts. I accept that this was done in the bona fide belief that the D...