Building permit renewal denied when work hasn't started due to statutory tenant presence.

[*1584] 1972 June 29

(TRIANTAFYLLIDES, P., L. LOIZOU, HADJIANASTASSIOU, A. LOIZOU, JJ.)

APPELLATE JURISDICTION

Nina Siman,

Appellant,

The Municipality of Famagusta,

Respondent,

(Revisional Jurisdiction Appeal No.96).

Statutes - Construction - Principles applicable - Not completed in the proviso to section 5 of the Streets and Buildings Regulation law, Cap. 96. Streets and Buildings - Building permit -- Validity – Renewal - Proviso to section 5 of the Streets and Buildings Regulation Law, Cap. 96 - A building permit is not renewable thereunder, unless the work or other matter to which it relates has started, but is not completed, before its expiry - Nor is inability to start building, because of presence of a statutory tenant on property concerned, during the one year’s period of the validity of the permit, a ground of renewal under the said proviso.

Equality - Principle of equality - Article 28.1 of the Constitution - Proviso to section 5 of the Streets and Buildings Regulation Law, Cap. 96 - Does not offend against the principle of equality by discriminating against landlords who at the time of obtaining a building permit are unable to start building, due to the presence on their properties of statutory tenants.

Chr. Demetriades with A. Triantafyllides, for the Appellant.

M. Papas, for the Respondent.

JUDGMENT

The judgment of the Court was delivered by:-

TRIANTAFYLLIDES. P.: This is an appeal against the [*1585] first instance decision* of a judge of this Court determining a recourse which was made by the appellant - the applicant in the recourse - against the refusal of the respondent Municipality to renew a building permit which had been granted to the appellant on the 9th July, 1970, in respect of the erection of a block of flats in Famagusta, the renewal of the permit was refused on the ground that since, in accordance with the law, the permit had ceased to be in force one year after it had been issued, and no work pursuant to the permit had started within such year, it was not legally possible to renew it.

The relevant provision is section 5 of the Streets and Buildings Regulation Law, Cap. 96, which reads as follows:

“A permit shall be valid for one year from the date of the issue thereof:

Provided that, if the work or other matter is not completed within that period, the permit shall be renewable at any subsequent time if not conflicting with any Regulations in force at the time of such renewal, upon payment of the fee prescribed for the original permit or of two pounds whichever is the less. The permit so renewed shall be valid for one year from the date of renewal”.

The learned trial judge held that in view of the wording of the proviso to section 5, above, a building permit can be renewed only if the work authorized by it has started before its expiry; he, therefore, found in favour of the Municipality and dismissed the recourse of the appellant. [*1586]

It has been submitted by counsel for the appellant that, though they do not disagree with the proposition that a situation of non-completion appears to presuppose the event of starting, the phrase if the work or other matter is not completed within that period5 does not necessarily exclude in all cases a situation where there has been non-completion because the relevant work has not yet started.

The object of the interpretation of a statutory provision is to discover the intention of the legislator and such intention must be deduced from the language used (Canner v. Baldwin, (1965) 2 Q.B. 53, per Lord Parker C.J. at p. 61); also, as pointed out in Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes, 12th ed., p. 29, where the language is plain and admits of but one meaning, the task of interpretation can hardly be said to arise.

The verb “to complete” means to “bring to an end”, to finish (see, inter alia, the Oxford Universal Dictionary); therefore, in their ordinary meaning the words not completed in the proviso to section 5 are not applicable to any work other than work which has already started.

Not only there is nothing in the said proviso which can be taken as modifying, altering or qualifying the ordinary and natural meaning of the words “not completed”, but, on the contrary, if it were intended to allow the renewal of a building permit even if the work authorized by it had not yet started before such permit had ceased to be in force, it would have been sufficient to provide only “that a permit shall be renewable at any subsequent time”, without it having [*1587] been necessary to insert between the words “that” and “a permit” the sentence “if the work or other matter is not completed within that period”.

So, in our opinion, the wording of the proviso to section

5 is capable of only one meaning, namely that a building permit Is not renewable thereunder unless the work or other matter to which it relates has started, but is not completed, before its expiry.

Counsel for the appellant have submitted that the appellants building permit ought to have been renewed, under the proviso to section 5, because during the one year’s period of the validity of the permit the appellant was not able to start building in view of the fact that her property concerned was in the possession of a statutory tenant and the Court proceedings for his eviction therefrom were not completed during the said period. But “the consideration of particular circumstances in each case, or a regard to a greater or less degree of convenience” cannot lead to interpreting a statutory provision in a manner not warranted “by words written or words necessarily implied and therefore virtually written” (see Gwynne v. Burnell, 1840, 7 CL.

1 F. 572, per Coleridge J. at p. 607; 7 E.R. 1188, at p. 1201); and to hold that in the present case the permit granted to the appellant was renewable under the proviso to section 5 would amount to construing such proviso so as to embrace a situation not covered by its plain wording (see, inter alia, Whitehead v. James Stott & Co. (1949) 1 K.B. 358). [*1588]

It has, also, been contended by appellant’s counsel that the proviso to section 5 offends against the principle of equality, because it discriminates against landlords, such as the appellant, who at the time of obtaining a building permit are in the disadvantageous position of not being able to start building, due to the presence on their properties of statutory tenants. We are of the view that no question of discrimination can be said to arise merely because it may happen, in a particular case, such as the present one, that a landlord does not manage to evict the statutory tenant before the expiry of the relevant building permit.

For all the foregoing reasons this appeal fails and is dismissed accordingly; but, like the trial judge, we are making no order as to costs because of the novelty of a point which had to be determined.

Appeal dismissed.

* Report in (1972) 2. J.S.C. 115