Cases - Uddin & Anor v London Borough of Islington

Record details

Name
Uddin & Anor v London Borough of Islington
Date
[2015]
Citation
EWCA Civ 369
Legislation

Landlord and Tenant Act 1985

Keywords
Commercial property - landlord and tenant - dilapidations - repairing obligations - section 11 - rising damp
Summary

The Uddins were joint weekly tenants of a maisonette in the basement and ground floor of a converted Victorian house. Islington London Borough Council was the landlord and was under an implied repairing covenant pursuant to section 11 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 to keep in repair the structure and exterior of the property. The respondents complained that the property was badly affected by rising damp which had caused significant and ongoing deterioration to internal finishes.

The tenant argued that the landlord had an obligation to install a damp proof course. However, the landlord contended that if rising damp is caused by an inherent defect, remedying that defect would involve the property becoming wholly different to the property that was demised. The judge disagreed: 'The mere fact that damp is caused by an inherent defect does not of itself absolve the landlord' and he found that, on the facts of this particular case, the landlord was liable to install a damp proof course.

In fact, there was evidence to suggest that a damp-proof course had been retro-fitted at some point before the Uddin's tenancy, but the presence of damp demonstrated that it had failed. As this failure had led to the disrepair of the maisonette, the landlord had breached its duty to repair.

So, taking into account the facts and circumstances of any particular case (which may include the length of time a lease has left to run, the likelihood of wants of repair re-occurring, the cost of the remedial works and the cost of remedying an inherent defect), where the ongoing costs of repair would out-strip the costs of remedying an inherent defect, then, practically speaking, it would be better to remedy the defect than to continually deal with the problems caused by it.