The Defective Premises Act 1972 provides an important cause of action for personal injury claims. It was enacted to ensure that landlords who are under repairing obligations to tenants owe a duty of care to their tenant’s visitors as well. As a result, landlords owe “to all persons who might reasonably be expected to be affected by defects in the state of the premises a duty to take such care as is reasonable in all the circumstances to see that they are reasonably safe from personal injury or from damage to their property caused by a relevant defect” (section 4).
Sternbaum v Dhesi [2016] EWCA Civ 155 concerned an accident that happened on a steep staircase, which was enclosed by walls on both sides. There was no handrail or bannister, but there was evidence to suggest that there might have been a bannister at some stage in the building’s history. The claimant, who slipped and fell while visiting the tenant, claimed that the stairs were dangerous and that, had there been a handrail, the accident would not have happened.
The claimant suggested that the missing bannister/handrail was part of the staircase and that the staircase was part of the structure, which was the landlord’s responsibility. When the bannister/handrail was removed the staircase became unsafe, and this was a defect which the landlord should have repaired. The claimant relied on Hannon v Hillingdon Homes [2012] EWHC 1437 QB. In that case, the judge ruled that the landlord was responsible for failing to “repair” a bannister that had been deliberately removed by the existing tenant twenty years before the accident. However, the landlord in Hannon had let the premises with a handrail, whereas in this case the landlord had not.
