The High Court upheld a landlord’s notice terminating a tenancy because he required the dwelling for his own occupation, but ruled that a separate notice based on unpaid rent could not stand. It also found that a rent increase had not taken effect because the tenant had not received the required 28 days’ written notice.
In a judgment delivered on 8 August 2007, Miss Justice Laffoy considered a statutory appeal on points of law from a Private Residential Tenancies Board determination dated 6 October 2006. The tenant, Jack Canty, had challenged the Board’s rulings on a rent increase and two termination notices served by landlord David Connolly.
The Board had found both notices valid, directed the tenant and anyone residing in the property to leave within 28 days, and set rent at €750 a month from 1 March 2006 until possession was given. The court concluded that the tenancy agreement’s rent increase provision was treated as a rent review under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004. It therefore required 28 days’ advance written notice. The landlord’s letter of 23 February 2006 did not give that notice, so the increase was invalid.
The court also found that the landlord had notified the tenant of rent arrears and allowed more than 14 days to pass before serving the arrears notice. But the tenancy was a Part 4 tenancy, which required compliance with additional statutory conditions. The Board had not decided whether a 7 March letter, allowing three days to remedy the breach, met those conditions. The judge was not satisfied that the required ground for termination had been established and held that the 13 March notice based on arrears could not be treated as valid.
The second notice relied on the landlord’s stated need to occupy the property himself. The court found that the notice gave the required 42 days and that evidence before the Tribunal supported its finding that the landlord’s intention was bona fide. It also held that the Act allowed a landlord to rely on more than one termination ground.
The court varied the Board’s order by replacing its finding that both notices were valid with a finding that one valid notice had been served: the own-occupation notice. It deleted the order requiring rent at €750 a month from 1 March 2006. The remainder of the determination order stood. The ruling was confined to the statutory appeal on points of law; the court could vary or cancel the Board’s determination order under that procedure.