Company given seven days to vacate factory it has illegally used for 36 years
Company never signed temporary emphyteusis and held on to keys after lease had lapsed
A company has been evicted from a factory building it had been illegally using for the past 36 years.
INDIS has filed eviction proceedings against Laga Company Limited before the Rent Regulation Board.
In its application, INDIS explained that a Letter of Intent was issued on January 16, 1980 and subsequently the property at Ħal Luqa Industrial Estate, known as LQA025, was leased out to the company for ten years. This started to run from February 1, 1980. After the ten-year period elapsed, the lease was not renewed but the company kept on using the premises.
A Letter of Intent was issued on November 13, 1997 approving the allocation of the premises in a temporary emphyteusis for 65 years under a set of terms and conditions. However, the contract was never signed.
Another Letter of Intent was issued on May 28, 2003 by INDIS’s predecessors by which the leasing of the premises was approved until 2010, however, the company did not enter into a contract to regulate the use of the premises under a lease.
INDIS highlighted that since January 31, 1990, Laga Company Limited had made use of public land without a valid title at law and never returned the keys. Once the lease lapsed, there was no contract regulating the company’s use of public property but the company remained in possession of the factory and did not return the keys to the property.
It asked the board to evict the company from the premises. It also requested that the case is heard summarily arguing that the respondent company had no counter-claims to make.
Laga Company Limited did not appear before the board and did not contest the claims.
The Board took into account the testimony of Dr Julian Buhagiar Vella in which it transpired that a lease concession for factory LQA025 was given. The contract expired on January 31, 1990. It also transpired that the company was occupying the premises without a valid title since it never entered into a new contract since then.
The facts were never contested by Laga Company Limited, and the Board upheld the claim. It gave the company seven days to evict the factory.
Laga Company Limtied was also ordered to pay the court expenses.
Magistrate Charmaine Galea presided over the board.