The Commercial Case Law Index is a collection of judgments from African countries on topics relating to commercial legal practice. The collection aims to provide a snapshot of commercial legal practice in a country, rather than present solely traditionally "reportable" cases. The index currently covers 400 judgments from Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Get started on finding judgments that are relevant to you by browsing the topic list on the left of the screen. Click the arrows next to the topic names to reveal a detailed list of sub-topics. Most judgments are accompanied by a short summary written by subject-matter expert postgraduate students from the University of Cape Town.
The plaintiff was a tenant in the defendant’s premises when the tenancy agreement was terminated by the defendant.
The main issue was whether the termination of the lease agreement between the parties was illegal because the plaintiff was not served with notice of termination of the lease agreement.
The court found that the plaintiff breached the terms and conditions of the lease agreement by failing to renew the lease agreement and defaulting on payment of the rent on time.
The court considered a clause of the parties' lease agreement, finding that the parties had agreed in their lease agreement that notices relating to their lease agreement would be served to each of them in various modes. One of those modes was service by hand to the last official address of the party. Since the clause did not state that the notice must be served to the party in person or physically but to be served through his last official address the court found that service to the last official place of business of the plaintiff could not be said to have failed to meet the agreement of the parties.
Therefore, since the plaintiff was a tenant in the premises where the notice was served as he was doing his business there it cannot be said he was not served with notice to terminate the lease agreement because the notice was served to him through his last official place of business.
The court decided in favour of the respondent.