Tristmire Ltd v Mew and another [2011] EWCA Civ 912, [2011] All ER (D) 278 (Jul)
Court of Appeal, Civil Division, Maurice Kay VP, Arden and Patten LJJ, 28 July 2011
The Court of Appeal, Civil Division, has held that a houseboat placed on a supporting platform in a harbour did not have a degree of permanence such as to make it part of the plot on which the platform stood so that a tenancy or licence of the plot would extend to the houseboat.
Philip Glen (instructed by Abels, Southampton) for the appellants. Thomas Jefferies (instructed by Daltons, Petersfield) for the respondent.
The proceedings concerned houseboats constructed from wartime landing craft. They were once capable of floating but now rested on wooden platforms which were supported by wooden piles driven into, and in some cases cemented into, the bed of the harbour. The first defendant purchased the houseboat Emily and the second defendant acquired the houseboat Watershed. Those houseboats were situated on plots of land.
They were not fixed on to their supporting platforms and, in both cases, what the defendants purchased
