The High Court has dismissed Michael Tully’s appeal on a point of law against a determination that the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB) had no jurisdiction to consider his tenancy dispute.
Mr Justice Keane delivered judgment on 6 November 2014. He held that the Tribunal had not misinterpreted or misapplied section 3(2)(g) of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, and that the tenant had not established that the Tribunal chairperson had a relevant interest or that the circumstances gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.
The dispute concerned accommodation at Butterfly Hill, Newcastle, County Wicklow, where the landlord also lived. The Tribunal found that the landlord had access to and used the shared areas of the property, while the tenant had exclusive use of his bedroom. It concluded that the arrangement was not a self-contained residential unit and that the Act did not apply because the landlord resided in the dwelling.
The tenant first applied to the PRTB for dispute resolution in March 2013. An adjudicator found that the Board had no jurisdiction. The tenant appealed to a Tribunal, which reached the same conclusion in October 2013. He then brought this High Court appeal under section 123(3), which permits an appeal on a point of law.
The court stressed that this was a restricted appeal, not a rehearing of the jurisdiction issue. It would not reconsider the Tribunal’s factual findings unless there was no evidence to support them, or disturb reasonable inferences drawn from those facts. Mr Justice Keane found an evidential basis for the Tribunal’s findings and concluded that it was open to it to find that the landlord resided in the same dwelling as the tenant.
The tenant also alleged that the Tribunal chairperson should have recused herself because she lived in the locality and had encountered the tenant in connection with equestrian activities. The chairperson said she had no recollection of meeting him, did not know where the rented dwelling was, and was unaware of the relevant family connection until she saw the tenant’s affidavit.
The judge found that the tenant had not established a pecuniary or other beneficial interest requiring the chairperson to take no part. He also found that the facts alleged, individually or together, would not give a reasonable person an apprehension of bias. The transcript showed the issue had not been raised at the Tribunal hearing; the judge said he would also have been disposed to find that the tenant could not raise it for the first time on appeal, but did not need to decide that point.
The court dismissed the appeal. It did not retry the tenancy dispute or make a new determination on the tenant’s application; the Tribunal’s no-jurisdiction determination remained undisturbed.