Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 132

Summary: - The tenant’s obligation to pay rent at the agreed time and place. It is the tenant’s principal obligation from the beginning of the lease relationship. Failure to discharge this obligation. The landlord may compel the tenant to do so in accordance with the general rules. Payment to the creditor is a condition for the validity of payment. Payment made to someone other than the creditor. It does not discharge the debtor unless the creditor approves it or derives a benefit from it. Rule: The provision in the first paragraph of Article 586 of the Civil Code that “The tenant must pay the rent on the agreed dates ...” indicates, as disclosed by the explanatory memorandum to this Code, that the obligation to pay rent is the principal obligation facing the tenant from the beginning of the lease relationship, that the tenant is obliged to pay the landlord at the agreed time and place, and that, if the tenant fails to pay, the landlord is entitled to compel the tenant to do so in accordance with the general rules. A condition for the validity of payment is that it be made to the creditor. If payment is made to someone other than the creditor, the debtor is not discharged unless the creditor approves that payment or derives a benefit from it. In view of the foregoing, and as it is established in the papers that, under the contract dated 14/2/2006, the first respondent leased from the appellant the space in dispute for use in storage activity in consideration of KWD 27000, payable in twenty instalments of KWD 1350 each, and that the respondent paid the appellant the rent due for the period from 1/1/2007 to 30/7/2009, amounting to KWD 13950, this indicates that it benefited from the premises during that period without interference by the appellant or third parties with that enjoyment, and that it paid the rent to the appellant as an obligation incumbent upon it as tenant and a right of the appellant to collect it as landlord pursuant to the aforementioned contract concluded between them, and as consideration for the benefit it obtained from using the premises in dispute. Accordingly, the appellant was entitled to take the rent paid for that period and received it rightfully, since rescission of this contract consequential upon rescission of the original tenant’s contract—as established in this Court’s jurisprudence—does not exempt the respondent from paying consideration for the benefit it obtained. The appellant is therefore not obliged to return it, as there was no unjust enrichment at another’s expense and no impoverishment on the part of the first respondent, since, in return for the rent it paid to the appellant, it obtained a benefit by using the leased premises during that period. The respondent gains nothing in this regard from its contention that it deposited the rent for the previous period a second time for the account of the second respondent in his capacity, after he rescinded the contract concluded between him and the original operator of the plot containing the premises in dispute—....—because that latter contract is independent, in its parties and obligations, of the contract concluded between the appellant and the respondent. This does not create a right for the first respondent in his capacity to collect the rent due from the respondent, nor is it discharged therefrom by depositing the rent for his account, since he is not a party to the lease relationship from which that rent arose. This he acknowledged in his memoranda before the court of merits, in which he denied having a relationship with the two parties to the dispute. The papers contain nothing indicating that he served notice on the first respondent to pay the rent to him, by virtue of which his right would attach to the rent from the date of notice, within the meaning of Article 602 of the Civil Code. The appellant did not authorize him to collect the rent or approve its payment to him. Furthermore, the papers contain nothing indicating that the second respondent in his capacity received the rent deposited by the first respondent for his account for the aforementioned period with the Enforcement Department. It is therefore for it to recover what it deposited for him, whereby its alleged impoverishment is negated. Since the challenged judgment departed from this view and upheld the first-instance judgment ordering the appellant to return the adjudged amount and interest thereon, it is defective through an error in applying the law and unsound inference, requiring its cassation on this ground of challenge without any need to examine the remaining grounds of appeal.