22 / 266
would be the lack o f any precise principle or basis
on which to ascertain the proper amount o f each
apportioned rent.
In the present case there will be and now is a
profit rent. But this is not a sufficient distinction
from Webb’s case in which the figures are not
clear because the rents reserved on other parts of the
property are not given in the report. Nor is it
right to say that the vendor retained no interest
there. He had a reversion and was obliged to pay a
head rent and retained the collection o f the ground
rents from the sub-leases. In all o f those respects
the present case is similar.
The only possible
distinction is that the rent reserved here is such
that, having regard to the other property, there is a
profit rent.
The only other case with a possible bearing on the
question I have to decide is Hellard
v.
Bewes (1896)
2 Ch. 229. On referring to it, it will be found to be
a decision as to the amount o f costs payable in the
particular circumstances and as to what was the
proper scale o f costs.
There was no question
whether the transaction should be regarded as a
lease or as a sale.
One other case which was referred to was an
unreported decision on the construction o f the
Finance Act, 1947. I doubt if that case could or
does affect what I have to decide. It was a decision
on a particular contract.
I come, then, to the conclusion that in all the
circumstances o f the case, looking at the realities
o f the transaction between the parties this was
really a sale carried out by way* o f an underlease.
So no question of the existence o f any custom as
to the payment o f costs arises except the negative
one that neither party is liable to pay the costs of
the other.”
(The Gazette of the Incorporated Taw Society of
Northern Ireland).
INCOME TAX
SOLICITORS’ ENTERTAINMENT
EXPENSES
In Bentley, Stokes and Lowless
v.
Beeson
(Inspector of Taxes), reported in the
Times
news
paper o f May 22nd, the Court o f Appeal in England
dismissed an appeal by the Crown from a decision
of Mr. Justice Roxburgh allowing an appeal by
Messrs. Bentley, Stokes and Lowless, solicitors,
from a decision o f the Commissioners for the
special purposes o f the Income Tax Acts. The
Commissioners held that the firm were not entitled
to deduct certain expenses in computing their
profits for income tax purposes. The partners of
the firm had expended £539 in entertaining clients
to lunch or dinner on occasions when professional
advice was given and was charged for in the ordinary
way.
The Commissioners had found that the
expenses claimed were incurred primarily and
principally, but not purely, for business purposes
and that the sum claimed was not money wholly and
exclusively laid out or expended for the purposes
o f the profession, and dismissed the appeal.
Mr. Justice Roxburgh allowed the appeal o f
the firm from the decision as stated, and the Crown
now appealed to the Court of Appeal consisting of
the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice Birkett and
Lord Justice Romer. The Court o f Appeal held
that the expenditure in question was wholly and
exclusively laid out for the professional purposes
of the appellant firm within Rule 3
(a)
o f the rules
applicable to cases I and II o f Schedule D to the
Income Tax Act, 1918, and dismissed the appeal
o f the Crown. Leave to appeal to the house of
Lords was granted.
COVERING AN UNQUALIFIED
PERSON
O
n
24th June, the Divisional Court in England
dismissed an appeal by Mr. L. T. C. Halliday of
New Court, Lincolns Inn, London, from the
fin d in g s
o f the Disciplinary Committee under the
Solicitors’ Act, 1932-41, and ordered that the
appellant’s name be struck off the Roll. The offence
charged was that the solicitor had agreed to share
with an unqualified person his profit costs in respect
o f contentious business and failed to state that he
had a place or places o f business at Shoreham-by-Sea.
It was also alleged that he had wilfully and know
ingly permitted his name to be used in an action
in the County Court for the profit o f an unqualified
person contrary to section 51 of the Solicitors’ Act,
1932. The facts found by the Committee were that
there had been an agreement between the appellant
and the unqualified person by which the latter was
given a free hand to deal with legal business in the
solicitor’s name and to keep for himself the profit
costs in relation thereto. (In
re
a Solicitor, the
Times
Newspaper, 25th June, 1952).
EJECTMENT—STAY OF
EXECUTION
I
t
is understood that the President o f the Circuit
Court recently held that a stay o f execution having
been granted on an order for possession o f a house,
the Court cannot grant a further stay if one o f the
conditions o f the earlier order has been broken.
In the case before the Court a decree for possession
had been obtained with a stay o f execution, con- j