Ombudsman rejects plea over derequisitioned property

The owners of a commercial property requisitioned in 1956 and subsequently divided into two housing units have lost a case they filed before the Ombudsman where they called on the Department of Social Housing to relocate a tenant and to give them back possession of the property as one whole restored to its former commercial state.

The owners re-took possession of one part of the property in 2002 and a derequisition order was issued. They had since tried to convince the tenant of the second tenement to vacate the premises and, when they were unsuccessful, they requested the Social Housing Department to give them possession of the second tenement and relocate the tenant.

The department argued that once only one requisition order had been issued for the whole property, the derequisition also applied to the whole property. It was therefore no longer responsible for the property, and the tenant who still occupied a section of the property no longer enjoyed the protection of the department but was protected by the rent laws.

The owners, following a court case, had been forced to recognise the tenant, who had since then paid the rent directly to them and they had accepted it.

The Ombudsman, Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino, observed that complainants were resting most of their arguments on a judgment by the Court of Appeal on October 3, 1958 which stated inter alia that "rebus sic stantibus, there is no reason to believe that at the end of the requisition period, appellant will not be able to restore the premises (if in fact he has this obligation) to its original state when it had been requisitioned".

The Ombudsman said that in his view the judgment did not categorically lay down that the department had a duty to return the requisitioned property to its owners in its original state. If anything, it threw doubt as to whether this was the case.

The director of Social Housing had the same rights and obligations in respect of repairs and maintenance of a requisitioned building as a tenant under the Civil Code. The legal situation changed, however, when the owners recognised as their tenant the person to whom the requisitioned premises were allocated.

In this case, a court judgment had declared that the owners had no valid reason to refuse to recognise the person occupying the requisitioned tenement as their tenant.

The derequisition of a property did not materially affect the relationship between complainants and the occupier of the property. For all intents and purposes, the only substantial effect of the derequisition was that the requisitioned property would revert to the owners and not to the Department of Social Housing once it became vacant.

The Ombudsman therefore said the submissions by the department were correct and the lease in favour of third parties was valid at law and created contractual rights and obligations between complainants and the tenant that could not be disturbed. The department could not intervene to enable the owners to regain possession of the remaining part of their property after it was derequisitioned as the tenant was legitimately occupying it on the strength of a valid lease agreement with them.