Landlord and tenant

Fair rent for dwelling-house landlord effecting repairs and applying for registration of new rent repairs amounting to change in condition of dwelling-houseR (Haysport Properties Ltd) v Rent Officer for West Sussex Registration Area: CA (Lords Justices Peter Gibson, Chadwick and Keene); 30 January 2001The applicant landlord of a property registered a fair rent in respect of a tenancy under the Rent Act 1977.

Following repairs effected to the dwelling house pursuant to a local authority notice, the landlord made a new application for registration of a fair rent.

The application was refused by the rent officer on the basis that there had been no change in the condition of the dwelling-house or in any other circumstances which were taken into account when the fair rent had been registered.

The applicant unsuccessfully sought judicial review of the refusal.

The applicant appealed.Steven Woolf (instructed by Wallace & Partners) for the applicant; Martin Rodger (instructed by the Treasury Solicitor) for the rent officer.Held, allowing the appeal, that the effecting by the landlord of repairs to a dwelling-house pursuant to an obligation to repair amounted, for the purposes of section 67(3) of the Rent Act 1977, to such a change in the condition of the dwelling-house including the making of any improvement therein or any other circumstances taken into consideration when the rent was registered or confirmed so as to make the registered rent no longer a fair rent; and that, accordingly, the rent officer was not entitled to refuse the landlords application on the basis that the repairs had not resulted in a change of condition of the dwelling house, and the new application to register a fair rent should be accepted