Robertson v. Biddell

Citations

• 32 Fla. 304
• 13 So. 358

Syllabus

<p>Landlord and tenant — tenant on becoming purchaser prom LANDLORD IS NOT ESTOPPED TO SHOW TERMINATION OP LANDLORD’S TITLE IN SUIT ON FORMER LEASE FOR RENT ACCRUING AFTER HlS PURCHASE.</p> <p>1. The general rule is, that in actions for rent, the tenant will not be permitted to question or impeach the landlord’s title, so long as he holds the possession originally derived from him; but this principle does not forbid the tenant from showing by way of defense in such cases, that the landlord’s title has expired, or has been terminated or extinguished by his own act, or by operation of law. The tenant can not dispute the title of the landlord so long as it remains as it was at the time the tenancy commenced; but he may show that the title under which he entered has expired or been extinguished.</p> <p>2. Where the plaintiff in a few days after putting the defendant as tenant in possession of the promises and receiving a month’s rent in advance, sells the property to the defendant tenant’s wife, delivering a well-defined contract of sale, and after receiving part of the purchase price, refunds to the defendant, because of such sale, most of the rent paid in advance, and notifies another co-tenant on the premises to attorn to the defendant’s wife, such acts are tantamount to a surrender by the landlord of his possession to the defendant’s wife as his vendee, and he can not revest himself with the right to such surrendered possession against his vendee’s consent, and without default on the vendee’s part, without first getting rid, in some legitimate way, of his contract of sale. His arbitrary revocation of such contract of sale, or refusal to carry it out, and demand for possession, or rents, could not of itself, in the absence of default on the vendee’s part, reclothe him with the right to the possession of the premises or to rents therefrom, until the rights of his vendee under such contract of purchase had been properly disposed of and determined. And in a suit by such