A com­pa­ny con­nect­ed to busi­ness­man and restau­ra­teur Pe­ter George Jr has been or­dered to pay over $175,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a for­mer land­lord.

High Court Judge Ricky Rahim or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion Wednes­day as he up­held a law­suit brought by Earl Brew­ster against his for­mer ten­ant Trinidad En­ter­tain­ment Restau­rants and Pro­mo­tions Lim­it­ed.

The law­suit cen­tred around the lease for Brew­ster’s prop­er­ty at Mar­aval Road in New­town.

In 2015, Brew­ster and the com­pa­ny signed a five-year lease for the prop­er­ty.

Brew­ster claimed that be­fore the lease was due to ex­pire, the com­pa­ny re­quest­ed a re­new­al.

He claimed that he pro­posed terms in writ­ing and a sec­ond lease was en­tered in­to in Sep­tem­ber 2020.

He claimed that the com­pa­ny was af­fect­ed by re­stric­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and failed to pay its month­ly rent for May 2021.

Brew­ster claimed that he agreed to ac­cept half of the rent for that month.

The fol­low­ing month, the com­pa­ny wrote to Brew­ster in­form­ing him of its in­ten­tion to va­cate the prop­er­ty and that he could keep its se­cu­ri­ty de­posit to cov­er the last month of oc­cu­pa­tion.

Brew­ster filed the case al­leg­ing that the com­pa­ny breached the terms of the sec­ond lease by fail­ing to give prop­er no­tice.

He claimed that he was en­ti­tled to $33,750 in rent for June 2021 as well as $101,250, which rep­re­sents three months’ rent un­der the ter­mi­na­tion clause of the lease.

He al­so con­tend­ed that the com­pa­ny caused $64,836 in dam­age to the prop­er­ty and left an un­paid $1422 wa­ter bill.

The com­pa­ny re­ject­ed claims of any wrong­do­ing as it de­nied the ex­is­tence of the re­newed lease and claimed that it had a month-to-month arrange­ment with Brew­ster af­ter its ini­tial lease ex­pired.

It al­so claimed that Brew­ster had promised to per­form re­pairs on the build­ing but failed to do so. It de­nied that it dam­aged the build­ing and claimed that it spent over $400,000 in ren­o­vat­ing it.

How­ev­er, it ac­cept­ed that it owed the out­stand­ing wa­ter bill.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Rahim ruled that a valid sec­ond lease for the prop­er­ty ex­ist­ed, one that was not de­pen­dent on Brew­ster con­duct­ing re­pairs, as con­tend­ed by the com­pa­ny.

He re­ferred to cor­re­spon­dence sent by the com­pa­ny in No­vem­ber 2020 in which it (the com­pa­ny) ap­peared to raise the is­sue of the re­pairs for the first time.

“It is more like­ly than not, there­fore, that the al­le­ga­tion of re­pairs be­ing re­quest­ed and an agree­ment that it be done as a pre­con­di­tion to the ef­fec­tive date of the agree­ment was a fab­ri­ca­tion based on the No­vem­ber 2, 2020 let­ter,” Jus­tice Rahim said.

Jus­tice Rahim al­so re­ject­ed the com­pa­ny’s com­plaint over Brew­ster mis­rep­re­sent­ing that he wit­nessed George sign the sec­ond lease.

Stat­ing that a court is free to ac­cept some ev­i­dence from a wit­ness but re­ject oth­er as­pects, Jus­tice Rahim said: “Al­though he has at the high­est told an un­truth and at the low­est at­tempt­ed to fill a gap in cir­cum­stances which he may not have re­mem­bered, it is clear that the weight of the ev­i­dence lies with his cred­i­bil­i­ty on the is­sue of the ex­e­cu­tion of the agree­ment in so far as George ad­mit­ted to sign­ing same in any event.”

Jus­tice Rahim al­so found that the com­pa­ny was wrong to have bro­ken the lease with­out giv­ing prop­er no­tice un­der it.

He al­so ruled that it was li­able for the dam­age to the prop­er­ty claimed by Brew­ster.

“It is clear to the court that a con­sid­er­able amount of dam­age was done to the premis­es up­on de­par­ture,” he said.

Jus­tice Rahim or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion claimed by Brew­ster less the $30,000 se­cu­ri­ty de­posit he re­tained.

The com­pa­ny was al­so or­dered to pay Brew­ster’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Brew­ster was rep­re­sent­ed by Bryan Mc­Cutcheon, and Mar­celle Fer­di­nand.