A shop’s projecting boards cut down by government order: do they belong to the tenant or to the shop owner?

Question

Question: By government order, the tenants had to have cut down those boards of the shops that projected forward beyond the market drains, since the order was directed at them; the owners remained unconcerned, although in fairness it was the owners who should have complied. May the tenants, in return for the expense of cutting down the boards, put the firewood from the boards to their own use or not?

Answer

Since those boards were put up by the owners, not by the tenants, their firewood is the property of the owners. The order to cut them down was given by the government, not by the owners; therefore that firewood should not be used without the owners’ permission.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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