Gouws v Jester Pools (Pty) Ltd 1968 (3) SA 563 (T)

OVERVIEW

Whether the owner of a property is unduly enriched by improvements made to his/her property by a contractor pursuant to an agreement with a third party who has misrepresented himself as the owner.

FACTS

On the 12^th of November 1964, Jester Pools (Pty) Ltd concluded a written agreement for the construction of a swimming pool for a contract price of R 1640 on a property in Bryanston with M Wolf, whom they believed was the owner of the property. This property in fact belonged to Gouws.

Jester pools constructed the pool according to the terms of the agreement. In January 1965 took back possession of the property from Wolf who later disappeared without paying Jester Pools for it.

Jester Pools brought an enrichment action against Gouws in the Transvaal Provincial Division (now North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria) for an amount of R 1000, the actual expenditure for the construction of the pool. The action failed, with the court finding that Gouws was enriched at Wolf’s expense and not Jester Pools.

PRECEDENT

Where a person contracts out to a third party improvements to an owner’s property without that owners authorisation, it is that person who is impoverished and not the third party as those improvements were sine causa. The causa between the impoverished person and the third party in the contract.

This is contrasted with the situation in Buzzard Electrical v 158 Jan Smuts Avenue Investments 1996 (4) SA 19 (A) [link to summary:  ] where the contract between the developer and subcontractor were as a result of an initial contract with the owner.