A man has been given until the beginning of the New Year to leave his Żebbuġ house following a landmark eviction ruling in which a magistrate ordered that the property returns to its rightful owners free and unencumbered. 

Presiding over the Rent Regulation Board, Magistrate Josette Demicoli ordered that Lawrence Aquilina leaves the premises within a month since he did not have the legal right to inherit the lease which was being passed on from generation to the next.

She ruled that Aquilina had no title over the property, which had been leased to his ancestors at a measly rent and gave him until January 2 to move out.

The board heard how the property, in Church Street, had been originally leased to Aquilina’s parents in March 1950. They had a large family of 10 children and Aquilina remained at home caring for his parents who passed away in 2014. Since this was his habitual residence where he had lived for all his life, Aqulina continued to reside there.

In 1950, the property was being rented for £6 every six months, which increased to Lm9 in 1974. In 2011, the rent increased to €185 a year and continued to increase every three years in accordance with the 2009 amendments to the rent laws.

The property’s owners, who stopped accepting rent in 2016, filed proceedings before the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, which in 2019 ruled that the old rent laws had breached their human right to the enjoyment of their property and awarded them €35,000 in compensation. The decision was appealed, and the constitutional court reduced the compensation to €15,000.

On the strength of this ruling, siblings Joseph, Georgina and Doreen Grima filed a case before the Rent Regulation Board demanding the effective eviction of the sitting tenant.

Magistrate Demicoli, presiding over the board, noted that the board could not ignore the decision handed down by the constitutional court which had found that the owners’ human rights had been breached by the old rent laws.

On his part, Aquilina argued that nowhere in the Constitutional Court’s judgment was there an eviction order against him. But the magistrate noted that the constitutional court does not usually order the eviction of a tenant and the owner would need to file an application before the board.

The fact that the constitutional court did not order the eviction did not necessarily mean that it considered the compensation as sufficient.

Lawyers Edward DeBono and Karl Micallef were counsel to the Grimas.