LANDLORD AND HIS RENT.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18152, 15 August 1924, Page 10

LANDLORD AND HIS RENT.

Scathing comments were made- by Judge Herbert-Smith •at --the Norwich County Court recently, in a case in which Alfred Brewster sued James Cecil Martin, for £l6'ss, aa 13 weeks' rent of a house. Mr Keefe, Martin's solicitor, pointed out the rent before the war was £l6 a year, and now it was £65. The owner quadrupled the rent immediately the house was decontrolled! ; Martin, an ex-service man..said that he commuted his pension to take a hotel, which was not a . success. _ He took the house because he had simply to get somewhere to-go. He paid 13 weeks' rent in advance. ''Unfortunately, under the" agreement," said the Judge, "Mr Brewster is entitled to his full pound of flesh, the money and the costs, but, very fortunately, I have power to say in what manner it shall be paid; and, to show my> contempt of the plaintiff and all his- doings, I order that the amount of the "-debt and costs be paid at the rate of one penny a month." Thus it will take over 325 years for the sum to be paid.