Landlord and tenant

Defects in gas fire causing personal injury landlord lacking knowledge of actual defects liable landlord liable for failure to take reasonable careSykes v Harry and Another: CA (Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss P, Potter and Hale LJJ):1 February 2001The tenant sought damages against his former landlord for carbon monoxide poisoning caused by emissions from a gas fire which would not have occurred had the fire been serviced.The judge, despite having found that the landlord had known of the need for, and the lack of, servicing, concluded that in the absence of knowledge of the actual defects themselves he had not been in breach of either his contractual obligations under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 or the duty of care owed under section 4 of the Defective Premises Act 1972.Stuart Brown QC and George Sigsworth (instructed by Rice-Jones, Halifax) for the tenant.

The landlord in person.

David Partington (instructed by Musa A Patel & Co, Dewsbury) for the trustee in bankruptcy of the landlords estate.Held, allowing the appeal, that the judge had erred in equating the tenants task under section 4 of the 1972 Act with the need under section 11 of the 1985 Act to demonstrate notice of the actual defect giving rise to the injury; that under section 4(1) a tenant merely had to show a failure on the part of the landlord to take such care as is reasonable in all the circumstances to see that the tenant was reasonably safe from personal injury; so that by failing to repair or maintain the gas fire over a substantial period prior to the date of the tenants injury, and in the light of his knowledge that the tenant was not having it serviced, the landlord had been in breach of his duty under section 4 of the 1972 Act.