Lease — Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 — Implied covenant to repair — Substantial works of renovation — Damage to tenant’s decorations — Whether works a repair — Whether landlord liable for damage — Appeal by tenant dismissed
The appellants held a tenancy of a dwelling-house owned by the respondent council. During December 1985 the appellants moved out of the premises so that the respondents could carry out works designed to improve the water-tight characteristics of the building. The work included new elevations and a roof; it cost nearly £11,000 and increased the value of the house by £8,500. Five months later, the appellants moved back, and they found that the premises needed redecorating in order to restore them to their previous internal condition.
The appellants’ claim for the costs of redecoration was dismissed by Mr Assistant Recorder Fryer Spedding in the Hartlepool County Court (November 26 1987). He decided that the works carried out by the respondents were not repairs within the respondents’ implied obligations to repair: see now section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. Accordingly the respondents entered the demised premises as licensees under an agreement with the appellants and not in connection with their implied liability to repair; it followed that the bar, in section 12 of the Act, against any contracting out of their repairing liability had no effect and an agreement between the parties by which the appellants accepted the sum of £50 as recompense for the damage and inconvenience was effective.
Held The agreement between the parties, restricting the respondents’ liability for the damage and inconvenience, was binding only if it was not precluded by section 12 of the 1985 Act. That depended on whether the works carried out were repairs. If they were repairs and the respondents had entered the premises as a matter of insistence rather than agreement, the appellants would have been entitled to claim for the costs of redecoration. The primary issue was therefore whether the works were repairs or otherwise.
Three different tests may be discerned from the authorities, which may be applied separately or concurrently as the circumstances of the individual case may demand, but all are to be approached in the light of the nature and age of the premises, their condition when the tenant went into occupation, and the other express terms of the tenancy: (1) whether the alterations went to the whole or substantially the whole of the structure or only to a subsidiary part; (2) whether the effect of the alterations was to produce a building of a wholly different character from that which had been let; and (3) what was the cost of the works in relation to the previous value of the building, and what was their effect on the value and lifespan of the building. Whichever of those tests one applies, and whether they are taken separately or together, the works carried out in this case were not repairs: the building which resulted was different in looks and had a longer life. The respondents had therefore entered the premises with the license of the appellants upon terms that the respondents’ liability for redecorations was limited to £50.
Michael Hart QC and Jonathan Holmes (instructed by R Bell & Son, of Hartlepool) appeared for the appellants; and David Gilliland QC and Richard Merritt (instructed by the solicitor to Easington District Council) appeared for the respondents.
