PARTNERSHIP ACCOUNTS should always be kept and settled in strict accordance with the financial regulations contained in the contract of partnership, or, in the absence of such a contract, with those imposed generally by the legislature in the Partnership Act. In particular, a strict regard should be had to the capital subscribed by the partners, the allocation of the profits, the allowance of interest on the partners' capital accounts, any limitation of partners' drawings, the date upon which the books are to be balanced, and any stipulation as to the period within which balance-sheets should be made up and accepted by the partners. Any deviation from the prescribed or ruling principles of the accounting should be the subject of formal special agreement between the partners. Whenever a new partner is taken into a firm there should be prepared, as a basis for future accounting a correct certified balance-sheet ; and the accuracy of this could well be made the subject of a specific guarantee by the original members.
PARTY WALLS.—The presumption of law is that adjoining owners are tenants in common of a wall 4which divides their property ( Wiltshire v. Sidford ; Cubitt v. Porter). This, according to Mr. Justice Fry in Watson v. Gray, is the most common and the primary meaning of the term. The same learned judge also distinguishes three other senses in which the ex pression " party wall " is used. (1) As signifying a wall divided longitudinally into two strips, one belonging to each of the neighbouring owners, as in Jfatts v. Hawkins. In such a case each neighbour, as was said in Cubitt v. Porter, has a right to pare away one moiety of the wall, even though the remaining part may be of little or no value to its owner. (2) As signifying a wall belonging entirely to one of the adjoining owners, but subject to an easement or right in the other to have it maintained as a dividing wall between the two tenements. (3) As designating a wall divided longitudinally into two moieties, each moiety being subject to a cross easement in favour of the owner of the other moiety. But to return to the more general case of a party wall held in common. In Watson v. Gray, the freeholds of two adjoining houses derived their title through conveyances from a common pre decessor, and in each of m hich conveyances there was a declaration that the wall dividing the yards at the back of the two houses should be and remain a party wall, it was held that the two owners were tenants in common of the wall. One of them began to erect in his back yard a shed immediately adjoining the wall, and, without the permission of the other, built on and along the top of the wall a new piece of wall of a triangular shape, about 4 feet 6 inches at the bottom and about 3 feet 4 inches in height. In thick
ness it corresponded with the thickness of the old wall, and was intended to support the roof of the shed. The other owner thereupon threw down that new piece of wall. And the Court subsequently approved of his action in so doing. Somewhat similar were the facts in the case of Stedman v. Smith. One owner has no right to exclude the other from the use of the top of a party wall of which they are each tenants in common ; he cannot for instance put floweabpots or broken glass thereon so as to prevent his neighbour running along the top of it, as he is entitled to do. What they must do, if they wish to possess separate and independent rights in the wall, is to obtain a partition (Mayfair Property Co. v. Johnston).
In London the law as above stated is practically swept away by the London Building Act, and even in other cities it may be considerably modi fied by local bye-laws under the Public Health Acts. Confining our atten tion, however, to London, it will be useful to note first the definition of a party wall as set out in the Act. The expression is here declared to mean— (a) a wall forming part of a building and used or constructed to be used for separation of adjoining buildings belonging to different owners, or occupied, or constructed, or adapted to be occupied, by different owners ; or (b) a wall forming part of a building and standing, to a greater extent than the pro jection of the footways, on lands of different owners. Part VIII. of the Act goes very fully into the rights of adjoining owners in respect of party walls, particularly from the point of view of one of those owners, called the " building owner," desiring to build in such a manner as to affect the user of a party wall. Such an owner has very extensive rights conferred upon him by the Act, and to these, when exercised in accordance with the statutory provisions, the adjoining owner must submit. The term " party fence wall' is applied in the Act to a wall which is " used, or constructed to be used as eseparation of adjoining lands of different owners and standing on lands of different owners and not being part of a building," but the term does not include a wall constructed on the land of one owner, the footings of which project into the land of another owner. See ADJOINING OWNERS.