Tribunal Adjusts Rent Due to Property Defects

OUTCOME: Allowed

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FIRST-TIER TRIBUNAL PROPERTY CHAMBER (RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY) Case Reference : MAN/00CG/MNR/2023/0306

Property : 5 [ADDRESS], [POSTCODE]

Applicant tenant : [NAME] [APPELLANT]

Respondent landlord Represented by : [NAME] [RESPONDENT] [NAME] and Ms [RESPONDENT]

Ms [NAME], [NAME] (Blundells)

Application : Market Rent, section 13 and 14 of the Housing Act 1988

Tribunal Members : Judge C. P. Tonge, LLB, BA [NAME], MRICS

Date of Decision : 23 November 2023

DECISION

© CROWN COPYRIGHT 2023

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Background

1. [NAME] [APPELLANT] "the tenant" of 5 [ADDRESS], [POSTCODE] “the property”, referred to the Tribunal a Notice of Increase of Rent, dated 9 June 2023, served on behalf of [NAME] [NAME] [NAME] and Ms [NAME] "the landlords", under section 13 of the Housing Act 1988 "the Act". The application to the Tribunal, by the tenant, is dated 14 July 2023.

2. The landlord's notice proposes a rent of £1,400 per calendar month, to take effect from 16 July 2022. It is in the prescribed form and is accompanied by a guidance note for tenants. The tenancy commenced on 16 October 2022.

3. The current rent is £1,155 per calendar month.

4. No hearing has been requested.

5. The tenant made representations on the application form and also in documents dated, 12 October 2023 and 12 May 2023.There are emails between the parties. All of these documents have been copied to the other party.

6. The Tribunal sent letters to the parties on 28 September 2023 to arrange for an inspection of the property to be held at 10.45 am on 10 November 2023.

The Law

The Tribunal must first determine that the Landlord’s Notice under section 13(2) of “the Act” satisfies the requirements of that section and is validly served.

Section 13 of the Act permits the Landlord, or his agent, under a periodic tenancy of the type specified in section 13(1) to serve a notice in the prescribed form on the tenant proposing a rent increase. A valid notice will have the effect of increasing the rent on the date specified in the notice unless before that date the tenant refers the notice under section 13(4) to the relevant Tribunal for a determination of the rent.

To be valid, the notice must not only be in the prescribed form but must also comply with the requirements set out in section 13(2) and (3) of the Act as to notice periods and propose a new rent to take effect at the beginning of a new period of the tenancy.

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The prescribed notice is that contained in the Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) Regulations 1997 (SI 1997 / 194) as amended by the Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2003 (SI 2003 / 260).

Section 14 of the Act requires the Tribunal to determine the rent at which it considers that the subject property might reasonably be expected to be let on the open market by a [NAME] under an assured tenancy.

In so doing the Tribunal is required by section 14(1) of the Act to ignore the effect on the rental value of the property of any relevant improvements made by the tenant, as defined in section 14(2).

Section 14(4) of the Act provides that for the purposes of section 14 rent includes among other things any sums payable to the Landlord by the tenant in respect of council tax, but it does not include a service charge within the meaning of section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 where the amount of service charge payable by the tenant is variable from time to time according to changes in relevant costs. However, it does include a fixed service charge.

The Inspection

7. The Tribunal commenced its inspection of the property at 10.45 am on 10 November 2023. The tenant was present as was Ms [APPELLANT], an employee of the letting agent, [NAME]. The inspection was carried out during dry weather, after rainfall.

8. The property is a detached house with a front garden and drive leading to a car port and a garage. The property has a kitchen with a dining area, bathroom, four bedrooms, separate toilet and a rear garden. PVCu double glazing and gas central heating. There is a public footpath running along one side of the property.

9. The garage roof permits rainwater to leak into the garage, water flooding into the car port. The Tribunal saw that there is a large overhang from the house above the garage roof and that water was dripping from that gutter fixed to that overhang onto the garage roof. There is an outside integral storeroom that houses the Ideal gas combi water boiler and the door handle is missing, making access to this room more difficult than it would otherwise be. There is an overflow pipe that comes out of the loft space area of the property, this has obviously come loose so that it is no longer providing an overflow. The pipe is extending approximately 6 feet out of the loft space in such a way as it is touching the wall of the neighbouring house.

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10. The written evidence is such that the perimeter hedging of the property has caused problems between the parties. The Tribunal did inspect the hedges, but since the state of the hedges will not have any effect upon the rental value of the property there is no need to describe them in detail.

11. The ground floor toilet also has a wash basin and radiator. This room has a tiled floor and a radiator. A double glazed window has a blown seal. There are cracks in the wall above the window.

12. The entrance hall has a double radiator.

13. The house is let as a furnished let. Some of the furniture supplied by the landlord is sub-standard and some of this has been placed into the garage, being replaced by the tenant. The property has curtains and floor coverings that are supplied by the landlord.

14. The kitchen is fully fitted and all white goods are the landlords except the refrigerator. The room once had underfloor heating but this failed to work some time ago. The floor covering is tiles and marks can be seen in the tiles that have been caused by the under floor heating. There is a crack in the ceiling, caused by two leaks of water from a bathroom above. The cause of the floods has been repaired but the crack remains. A window has faulty beading permitting rainwater to leak into the property.

15. The living room has a double radiator, a single radiator, a capped off gas fire, two sets of patio doors, with a step down onto the patio. The exterior wall has black mould in both corners of this room. There is black mould in the corners near the patio doors. The tenant complains that the landlord’s settee is not insufficiently good condition to be used.

16. The stairs have a drafty window, caused by defective beading. The landing has a slightly uneven floor, having been left in this condition after some plumbing repairs had been made.

17. The first bedroom is a large single room with double wardrobes and a radiator. There is black mould on the south facing exterior wall.

18. The second bedroom has a radiator. There is a blown seal in a double glazed window. There are cracks in the plaster above the window lintel, cracks in the ceiling and cracks in the plaster at the corner of the room.

19. The third bedroom has a radiator and built in wardrobes.

20. The fourth bedroom has black mould close to the widow and close to the ceiling on an exterior wall. The beading on the window is faulty and a window panel seal has blown. An outer wall is damp with a defective gutter running past the room.

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21. The bathroom is fully tiled with a plumbed in shower over the bath, wash basin, toilet, vinyl floor covering and a radiator. Some of the tiles are loose in one corner of the room. The landlord’s workmen removed a shower screen during repair work and replaced the screen with a curtain. That caused leaks of shower water out of the shower that had not happened when the screen was in place. In order to stop the leaks the landlord had a plastic strip fitted to the top of the bath that stands up from the bath in a manner that appeared to us to be dangerous if human body parts came into contact with it.

22. The Tribunal did not have time to decide this case on 10 November 2023 and the Tribunal adjourned the decision to 23 November 2023.

Written evidence

23. The tenant gave a description of the property on the application form and provided a two page document referring to various faults and disputes between the parties. There is also an email chain between the parties. Some potentially comparable properties have been suggested.

Determination

24. The notice of increase of rent is a valid notice.

25. Disputes between the parties as to the renewal of the lease on the property and who’s responsibility it is to cut hedges do not assist the Tribunal in determination of the market rent for the property.

26. The Tribunal considers that this property would achieve an open market let of £1,600 per calendar month if it were in good condition.

27. However, this property is not in in the condition expected of a modern market let and the market rent must therefore be adjusted, making deductions to allow for the faults that the Tribunal determines to be such as to reduce that rent.

28. The Tribunal determines that the following defects must reduce the rental value of the property, the amount being deducted is shown:

• Ground floor toilet, blown window and crack in wall. £5

• Living room, black mould.

£10

• Stairs and landing, window with faulty beading, depression in floor of landing.

£15

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• Bedroom 2,cracks in ceiling and wall and defective window. £20

• Bathroom, loose tiles and upstanding plastic from top of bath.£30

• Bedroom 4, Black mould on wall and ceiling, window blown with defective beading, leak on ceiling, damp outer wall, defective gutter

£40 • Garage with rainwater ingress, dripping gutter above garage

£45

• Missing door handle to outside storeroom.

£5

• Defective furniture, some replaced

£50

29. For more detail of the faults in paragraph 28, please refer to the inspection, above.

30. The Tribunal makes a deduction of £220 per calendar month due to the above faults.

31. Other issues were raised, but the above features are the only features that the Tribunal determines to be such as to reduce the market rent. The Tribunal therefore determines that the market rent for this property is £1,380 per calendar month.

The Decision

32. The Tribunal decides the rent at which it considers that the property might reasonably be expected to be let on the open market by a [NAME] under an assured tenancy is £1,380 per calendar month and this takes effect from 16 July 2023.

33. Appeal on a point of law is to the Upper Tribunal. There is no appeal against the factual calculation of the market rent. Any Party wishing to appeal against this decision has 28 days to deliver to this First-tier Tribunal an application for permission to appeal, stating the grounds of appeal, the particulars of those grounds, the paragraph numbers of the decision that are challenged and the result that the appellant seeks in raising the appeal.

Judge Tonge

17 January 2024