A couple's claim that a supermarket next to their Żabbar home had caused their property value to fall by more than €200,000 was dismissed by a civil court today. 

The married couple were seeking damages from the supermarket owners, saying their home's "uniqueness" and "open country views"  had been spoilt by the numerous stores, garages, roads, signage and other structures erected after the supermarket opened. 

A court heard how the married couple had themselves sold what was now the supermarket to its current owners more than 20 years ago. The couple had built a wedding hall complex and sold it to the respondents in 1992, under the express provision that it would be converted into a supermarket.

It was only in 2015 that the spouses filed a civil action for damages.

The court, presided by Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff, observed that aerial photos exhibited by the Planning Authority's legal representative as well as the architect's testimony proved that the supermarket and its adjacent car park had been built before 1999. The suit was filed in March 2015, well after the lapse of the two-year prescriptive period provided by law. 

Moreover, even if the action were not time-barred, the court declared that the spouses had failed to prove that they had actually suffered material damages as a result of the allegedly illegal structural development undertaken by the supermarket owners.

Indeed, the evidence put forward proved that the supermarket was legally and validly licensed. Any adjoining illegal structures had been lawfully sanctioned in February 2017.

The court therefore turned down the claim on the grounds that the action was time-barred, whilst commenting that the suit had apparently been triggered by the applicants' own failure to obtain the necessary permits to develop lands next to to their residence. Subsequent attempts by the supermarket owners proved successful and this evidently irked the applicants who had parted with their ODZ property at a lower price, the court said.