The private landlord held premises under a lease from a local authority which prohibited sub-letting and assignment. He sub-let to the plaintiff and then unlawfully evicted her. He appealed against an award to her of statutory damages, submitting that the prohibition of sub-letting and assignment in the lease meant that the market value of the landlord’s interest in the property under s.28 was virtually nil.
Held: The argument was rejected.
Lord Donaldson MR said: ‘I do not understand that section to contemplate, as Mr Carnwath’s argument contemplates, that the premises will be treated as virtually inalienable and having no value in consequence. Subsection (3) clearly contemplates that there shall be no increase in the damages because the effect of the tenant being dispossessed is that it enables some very valuable development to take place. But the whole concept of the landlord in default selling his interest on the open market to a willing buyer assumes that he can sell it on the open market to a willing buyer, and that involves the subsidiary proposition on the facts of this case that the willing buyer would take a lease from the Lambeth London Borough Council on a monthly basis subject to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 with a covenant against subletting or assignment in exactly the same way as Mr Cafane had done. In my judgment, there is nothing in that point.’
Judges:
Lord Donaldson MR, Russell and Nolan LJJ
Citations:
[1991] 1 EGLR 279, [1991] 2 All ER 235, [1991] EWCA Civ 1, (1991) 23 HLR 250, [1991] EGCS 5, [1991] 1 WLR 378
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – London Borough of Lambeth v Loveridge CA 10-May-2013
The Council had been found to have unlawfully evicted the respondent, and now appealed against the calculation of statutory damages awarded. It said that the court should in its valuation have allowed for the propensity for a move from a secure . .
Cited – Loveridge v London Borough of Lambeth SC 3-Dec-2014
The Council had granted a weekly secure tenancy of the premises to the appellant. The Court considered the calculation of damages awarded for an unlawful eviction of a residential tenant.
Held: Section 28(1)(a) requires the basis of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Housing, Damages
Updated: 05 August 2022; Ref: scu.245295