The Court of Appeal has overturned a High Court ruling that a rent officer was entitled to refuse an application for registration of a fair rent on the grounds that, under section 67(3) of the Rent Act 1977, a period of less than two years had expired since the previous registration date.
The ruling by Jack Beatson QC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, in July last year, came in a case in which landlord Haysport Properties Ltd challenged a rent officer’s refusal to review the rent of premises in West Sussex that had been occupied by tenant, Dennis Wakeford, since 1956.
An assessment panel had earlier reduced the rent due to the “very poor state” of the premises, but the landlord claimed that subsequent repair works had improved the condition of the house enough to merit a higher rent.
In the Court of Appeal, counsel for Haysport, Steven Woolf, argued that the judge had been wrong to determine that, because repairs were expressly excluded from the definition of “improvements” under section 75 of the Act, they could not amount to a change in the condition of the dwelling-house under section 67(3) 9 (a).
However, Martin Rodger, counsel for the rent officer, argued that, in order to justify a “mid-term review”, the applicant for registration of a rent had to show that there had been such a change in the condition of the dwelling-house as to render the registered rent unfair. Such changes might, he said, include the making of any improvements, the terms of the tenancy, the quantity, quality or condition of any furniture provided, or any other circumstances taken into consideration when the rent was registered.
He said that, under the Act, “improvement” included structural alteration, extension or addition and the provision of additional fixtures or fittings, but did not include decoration or repair.
However, allowing the appeal, Chadwick LJ, said the rent officer had made an error in proceeding on the basis that there had been insufficient change in the condition of the dwelling-house, given that Haysport had carried out works required by the local authority so as to reregister a fair rent.
R v Rent Officer of West Sussex Registration Area, ex parte Haysport Properties Ltd Court of Appeal (Gibson, Chadwick and Keene LJJ) 30 January 2001.
Steven Woolf (instructed by Wallace & Partners) appeared for the appellant; Martin Rodger (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) appeared for the respondent.
PLS News 1/2/01
