A flat was let by an underlease for seven years. The lease excluded the outside walls of the flat, but the tenant covenanted to pay for repairs to the building through a service charge. The tenant refused to pay the service charge which included the costs of repairing a neighbouring block also (included within the … Continue reading Campden Hill Towers v Gardner: CA 1977
Because of fungus, mould growth and dampness, the tenant’s council house was virtually unfit for human habitation in the winter when the condensation was at its worst. Section 32(1) of the 1961 Act implied in the tenancy a covenant by the council to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the dwelling-house. Section 32(3) … Continue reading Quick v Taff Ely Borough Council: CA 1986
A Local Authority found guilty of a statutory nuisance is not thereby liable for a civil damages suit. Citations: Times 26-Nov-1996, [1996] EWCA Civ 998, [1997] 1 WLR 956, (1997) 29 HLR 640, [1997] Env LR 157 Links: Bailii Statutes: Public Health Act 1936 Part II (Nuisance etc) Jurisdiction: England and Wales Citing: Cited – … Continue reading Issa (Suing By her Next Friend and Father Issa) and Issa (Suing By her Next Friend and Father Issa) v Mayor and Burgesses of London Borough of Hackney: CA 19 Nov 1996
The court considered the landlord’s covenant for repair of residential property. Held: The installation of a damp-course in property which did not previously have one was not a repair: ‘applying the facts of that case to the facts of this case, the tenant in this case took a house without a damp-proof course. What he … Continue reading Wainwright v Leeds City Council: CA 1984
(County Court) The defendant landlord granted the plaintiff a three year assured shorthold tenancy. He now appealed a finding that he was in breach of an implied covenant to maintain the space heating, and otherwise. The tenant had returned the keys. The court was asked whether the landlord by his breach had committed a repudiatory … Continue reading Hussain v Mehlman: CC 5 Mar 1992
The tenant occupied a maisonette under a secure tenancy of the plaintiff. She sought damages for breach of the repairing covenant implied under s11. Questions arose as to whether L should have told her not to dry clothes in a heated cupboard so as to cause damp, if she had whether the resulting damp was … Continue reading Southwark London Borough Council v McIntosh: ChD 2002
The premises at issue consisted of a terraced house to which access was obtained from the street through a gate, down some steps and along a two metre path which led to the front door of the house. Held: The steps were part of the exterior of the dwelling-house for the purpose of section 32(1)(a) … Continue reading Brown v Liverpool Corpn: CA 1969
The claimants were tenants who sought damages from their local authority landlords, for failing to remedy defects such as mould, mildew, and condensation in the dwellings let to them. The defects were a result of the design of the building. They asked the court to revisit the law settled in the Quick case in the … Continue reading Lee v Leeds City Council; Ratcliffe and Others v Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council: CA 21 Jan 2002
The scale of the dampness which had to be endured by a tenant led to constant colds and minor ailments being suffered by the plaintiff and her children who had to live in those unhealthy conditions. Held: The legislature had ‘conspicuously refrained’ from updating the statutory rent limit and it was therefore not for the … Continue reading McNerny v London Borough of Lambeth: CA 1988
Tenants of council flats with ineffective sound insulation argued that the landlord council was in breach of the covenant for quiet enjoyment in their tenancy agreements. Held: A landlord’s duty to allow quiet enjoyment does not extend to a positive duty to require an improvement in the sound-proofing of a building, well beyond standards which … Continue reading Southwark London Borough Council v Mills/Tanner; Baxter v Camden London Borough Council: HL 21 Oct 1999