Sliema landlord’s eviction attempt quashed

Property developer and landlord Ernest Grech has been refused the right to evict one of his tenants, after an Appeals Court found his objections to an unauthorised development unconvincing.

Grech lost the appeal on an original decision by the Rent Regulation Board that threw out his request to evict the ground floor tenant of the Sliema apartment block, from which Grech runs his property business, El Dara.

Originally, the ground floor tenant at 15, Ghar il-Lembi Street, who runs the Blondino restaurant, had refused to pay a 3% increase on his annual €11,000 rent in 1996.

Tenant Emanuel Galea was finally called on by a court of law in 2010 to pay the increased rent, but in an appeal filed by El Dara, Ernest Grech demanded that Galea be evicted. The rent regulation board rejected the request.

Grech also insisted that Galea had constructed a lightweight structure to enclose the front yard of the ground floor tenement, which breached the rental contract since it had no MEPA permits or his consent.

But the rent regulation board’s decision highlighted the fact that Grech ran the El Dara offices from the apartments overlying the ground floor tenement.

Indeed, it was brought to his attention that he never contested the aluminium enclosure when it was erected in 1990, even though not being suitably informed according to the rental contract. It was put to Grech that he was indeed responsible to alert his tenant of the breach at the very time it took place.

But 25 years later, Grech was seeking an eviction based on the breach of contract.

“The tenement is part of the apartment block where I have my office. I was there regularly. I guess the structure was set up in the late hours of the day. I was too taken up by the court cases against the tenant on the rent, and I was expecting him to inform me officially with the extension he had made,” Grech said in court.

But the Appeals Court decided that the fact that Grech had not made any objections to the extension in the first place, had undermined his claim.

“Indeed, the lack of proof of any objection, which was only first signalled in 1996, shows that there was no objection at all,” Mr Justice Anthony Ellul said.