Lease law violated property owners’ human rights

The law that enables the occupier of a property to convert a title of emphyteusis (long lease) to perpetual emphyteusis was in violation of the owner’s fundamental human rights, a court ruled yesterday.

Antonio Briffa, the late father of Michael Angelo Briffa, had, in 1968, granted Palazzo Gian ­Batttista in Żurrieq to Frank Cremona for 40 years against payment of an annual ground rent of €850.22.

In 1997, Nadia Merten purchased the remaining period of the original 40-year emphyteutical grant, which terminated in August 2008. At that point, Ms Merten wanted to implement her right at law to convert the temporary emphyteusis to a perpetual emphyteusis by paying the owners six times the original ground rent.

However the owners, Mr Briffa, Joseph Briffa, Carmelo Briffa, Maria Concetta Doneo and Tarcisio Briffa, asked the court to declare that the law in question violated their human rights and to declare that Ms Merten had no legal title to the property.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Joseph Azzopardi, sitting in the First Hall of the Civil Court, pointed out that case law on this issue was contradictory. While there was one judgment that had concluded that section 12 of the Housing Decontrol Ordinance, which permitted this conversion, was in violation of an owner’s human rights, other judgments had not concurred with this interpretation.

In a judgment delivered by the Constitutional Court earlier this year, it was concluded that each case had to be decided on its particular merits in order to ­establish whether the conversion of a temporary emphyteusis to a perpetual one was in violation of the owner’s human rights.

A court-appointed expert had concluded that the property was worth €1,514,500. If the mechanism contained in section 12 of the Housing Decontrol Ordinance was applied, this would mean that Ms Merten would pay the Briffa family €5,101.32 in annual ground rent.

However, the judge took a figure of one per cent of the value of the property per annum and said this would be three times the ground rent payable in terms of law.

The court therefore upheld the Briffa family’s case and ordered Ms Merten to vacate the property within three months.