Sheila Phillips (Respondent (Appellant Below) v The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Newham (Appellants (Respondents Below)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE GRIFFITHS,MR. JUSTICE EASTHAM |
| Judgment Date | 30 July 1981 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1981] EWCA Civ J0730-4 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | 81/0354 |
| Date | 30 July 1981 |
[1981] EWCA Civ J0730-4
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM BOW COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE LIPFRIEND)
Royal Courts of Justice.
The Master of the Rolls
(Lord Denning)
Lord Justice Griffiths
and
Mr. Justice Eastham
81/0354
Plaint No. 79-11329
MR. PATRICK GARLAND, Q.C. and MR. JOSEPH BUTLER-SLOSS (instructed by Messrs. Coleman Van Reyk) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
MR. DAVID TURNER-SAMUELS, Q.C. and MR. WILLIAM BIRTLES (instructed by R.G. Grant, Esq., Town Hall, East Ham) appeared on behalf of the Appellants.
Mrs. Sheila Phillips is the owner of a house, No. 20 Eclipse Road, E.13. It is let to a lady of uncertain age. We are told that she may be in her sixties or even in her seventies. The house is very considerably out of repair. The local authority, the London Borough of Newham, have many houses in their borough which are very badly out of repair. They have taken steps under the Housing Act 1957 to compel the owner to repair them. Section 9 of the Act says:
"Where a local authority, upon consideration of an official representation, or a report from any of their officers, or other information in their possession, are satisfied that any house is unfit for human habitation"—and they are so satisfied in this case—"they shall, unless they are satisfied that it is not capable at a reasonable expense of being rendered so fit, serve upon the person having control of the house a notice—(a) requiring him, within such reasonable time, not being less than twenty-one days, as may be specified in the notice, to execute the works specified in the notice".
In this case the local authority served upon Mrs. Phillips a notice saying that the house was unfit for human habitation: and they said that it was not capable at a reasonable expense of being rendered fit.
Mrs. Phillips—as she was entitled to do—appealed to the county court judge. It was for the county court judge to consider whether or not the house could be rendered fit for human habitation at reasonable expense. That is provided for in section 11(3) of the Act. But here comes the point. What does that mean? That is dealt with by section 39 of the Act, which says:
"In determining for the purposes of this Part of this Act whether a house can be rendered fit for human habitation at a reasonable expense, regard shall be had to the estimated cost of the works necessary to render it so fit and the value which it is estimated that the house will have when the works are completed".
That is rather a long way of saying: Is the cost of repair so much that it is not worth doing at all having regard to the value of the house? We have had several cases in the courts as to what is meant by the words "the value which it is estimated that the house will have when the works are completed".
I am afraid that I myself may have been responsible for some difficulty about this. Some of the things I said in Hillbank Properties Ltd. v. Hackney London Borough Council (1978) 1 Queen's Bench 998 led people to believe that the material value to be considered was the value of the house with vacant possession once the works were completed. If and in so far as my words gave rise to that impression, I would like to correct them. It was put in a better way by Lord Justice Geoffrey Lane (as he then was) in the Hillbank case at page 1014. It was summarised by Lord Justice Stephenson in F.F.F. Estates Ltd. v. Hackney London Borough Council (1980) 3 Weekly Law Reports 909 at page 927. He said:
"The authorities appear to agree in requiring the court to make a realistic approach to the value of dwelling houses as saleable assets in the hands of the landlord when considering the reasonableness of the expense required to improve them, and therefore to have regard to the presence of tenants and their rights of continued occupation and the effect that they have on the market value".
So the right way of approaching this particular case would...
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