SUPREME HONOUR DEVELOPMENT LTD v. LAMAYA LTD AND ANOTHER

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JUDGMENT

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Sir Derek Cons, V. P. delivered the judgment of the court:

1. In the appeal, from which leave is now sought to appeal further to Her Majesty in Council, this court declined to accept submissions that the right to give a name of its own choice to a building granted by the developer to a party who then purchased a particular parcel of individual shares in the land on which a building had just been erected was not enforceable by a subsequent owner of that parcel of shares against the subsequent owner of the developer's shares, either by virtue of s. 41 of the Conveyancing and Property Ordinance or as a direct contractual obligation assumed on the acceptance of an assignment to the shares "Subject to and with the benefit of" a Deed of Mutual Covenant which acknowledged the existence of the right. It is said that the applicant has an appeal as a matter of right because the value of the shares to which that right was attached was $3 million some two years ago and the value would not have changed much in the interim.

2. For my part, and I believe my Lords agree with me on this, I prefer to express no opinion whether the property referred to in Rule 2(a) of the Order in Council of the 10th August 1909 is the value of the shares as a whole or the value which should be attributed solely to the right to name, on which there is no evidence; for we are agreed, on the alternative application under Rule 2(b) that having regard to the common occurrence of such clauses in this jurisdiction, as Miss Yuen so advises us, their true construction is a matter of great general or public importance.

3. We therefore grant leave on that basis, leaving only the questions of the time within which the record should be prepared and despatched and an appropriate order as to Security