Simmonds v Sawnmun

Registered rent – Effect of improvements and refurbishments – Enlarging demised premises by removal of partition wall – Premises doubled in size – Whether the premises were thereafter to be considered the same “dwelling-house” or a different “dwelling-house” – Whether registered rent still applied The plaintiff was the landlord of a house in multiple occupation at 21A Canonbury Lane, London N1. Two rooms (2 and 9) in the house had been created by dividing a larger room into two approximate halves by means of a partition wall. The defendant was a tenant of room 2 and the registered rent was £15 per week (registered in 1988). In 1995 the plaintiff carried out works of refurbishment and (while the defendant was temporarily lodged in another room) he had the partition wall removed. He also had the resulting room rewired, replastered and replumbed, and a blocked-up window restored, so that the room had three windows (whereas the two smaller rooms had had one window each). The resulting room was called room 2 and the defendant moved into it early in 1996. The plaintiff charged a rent of £60 per week for this room, but did not apply to the rent officer for a new rent registration. In April 1997 the defendant applied for a registered rent and this was set at £50 per week. For many weeks the defendant had refused to pay more than £15 per week. The plaintiff sued the defendant for alleged arrears of rent, and the defendant counterclaimed for (among other sums) an alleged over-payment of rent. In county court arbitration proceedings, Deputy District Judge Woodcraft was referred to Gluchowska v Tottenham Borough Council [1954] 1 All ER 408; Kent v Millmead Properties Ltd [1983] 1 EGLR 109; Cheniston Investments Ltd v Waddock [1988] 2 EGLR 136; and Rakhit v Carty [1990] 2 EGLR 95. He held that the doubling in size of the room was a “material change in the dwelling-house”, which rendered the 1988 rent registration of £15 per week no longer effective. He therefore awarded the plaintiff damages for arrears of rent. The tenant applied to the circuit judge under CCR Ord 19 r 8, for an order setting aside the arbitration award for error of law. Held (1) The deputy district judge had applied the wrong test. He had approached Rakhit v Carty (supra) as if it was simply one case in a line of cases, which had explained how the courts should approach this problem. In truth, Rakhit v Carty had made new law, and had expressly departed from earlier decisions that the Court of Appeal had held to have been made per incuriam. The correct test was not “was the enlargement a material change in the particulars of the tenancy?” but whether the premises had undergone such a change to their structure as to render them no longer the dwelling-house referred to in section 44, Rent Act 1977. (2) Applying this test to a case where premises had been enlarged and improved, the correct approach was to ask whether the tenant, when speaking informally to a friend, would have been likely to say: “I have moved back into my room and it has been made much bigger . . .”; or whether he would have been likely to say: “I have got a new room”. (3) In the present case, the defendant (and most other people with him) would have regarded the accommodation as still being the old accommodation, enlarged and improved. Accordingly, the registered rent of £15 per week was the maximum recoverable rent until such time as it had been replaced by the new registration in April 1997. (4) Judgment on the tenant’s counter-claim. The arbitration award was set aside. Anne Seifert (instructed by the solicitor to Islington Legal Advice Centre) appeared for the tenant; the landlord appeared in person.